Remember My Son
by Allen's Matchmaker
Summary: The Earl begins to remember his days as Mana Walker. He soon realizes his greatest enemy may be his own beloved son. Ch.6: original version is posted.
1. Chapter 1: Fascination

CHAPTER EDITED: 11/21/2017

This one is actually finished. I have everything written down...so that means I should be able to update regularly for once, right?

SUMMARY: The Earl begins to remember his days as Mana Walker. He soon realizes his greatest enemy may be his own beloved son.

NOTE: The Earl watches a lot, but he is _not_ thinking any inappropriate thoughts. And! There are random excerpts starting next chapter.

* * *

 **Earl**

He watches children dart in and out of the crowded streets; their little feet made rapid thudding claps on the cobblestones. Tinkling, exuberant shrieks and giggles light up dull, cold bricks as they chased each other to their hearts' content. They were such joyful, young, adorable... creatures. Their parents must be so fortunate, he concludes, to be raising such nice children. What a pleasant life it would be to take care of them, he thinks.

He imagines saying goodnight to the children, tucking them to sleep with a thin blanket on straw mattresses over hard, cold dirt floors on moonless nights. He imagines a child-stubborn with a dash of kindness.

He imagines.

One brown-haired boy runs by the Earl, and something about his hair catches his attention more than the others.

Ah.

Brown. His heart aches with wonder. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his memories vaguely whisper of another brown-haired boy with spiky hair, eyes wide with desperation. He may have turned the boy's father into an akuma. Probably. And then the memory was gone just as fast as it had come.

His thoughts drift back to the children. He wants a kid with brown hair, he thinks. He thinks a lot these days. Living for thousands of years tended to do that. He thinks about his goals for humanity, his plans to crush the abominable Heart, the family, their setbacks, and then, after all is done, he thinks about children. His eyes follow them, too. He wonders what it would be like to take care of a child. Then he backtracks and realizes he would never do that. Probably.

He gazes at them again. He's not responsible enough to pull that off. What would he even do with a child?

He doesn't know why he thinks about children so much. He doesn't know why watching them makes him feel as if he is remembering something (or someone) he can't quite grasp, and he doesn't know when this habit of his started. Sane men probably didn't spend every hour they weren't making more akumas in observing children. Then again, sane men probably didn't go around turning grieving people into hideous, killing machines either.

Twinge. His senses tingle. He shakes off the feeling of disappointment. Somewhere in the northern part of the world, a mother was driven insane with mourning the sudden death of her only son: the perfect opportunity to make a new akuma.

He gives the playing children one last, fleeting glance—time to head back to work.

The dark haired man adjusts his top hat and weaves through the crowd of busy town people. He ducks into an alley, and is gone.


	2. Chapter 2: Eeeeek!

CHAPTER EDITED: 11/21/2017

Summary: The Earl begins to remember his days as Mana Walker. He soon realizes his greatest enemy may be his own beloved son.

Thank you for all the support! It's an idea that's been settling in my plot-brain for a while. Please don't hesitate to help me find any mistakes with grammar or with D. Gray-Man plot. I'm adding more things to the story I already have, so feel free to suggest anything that's interesting or might be cool.

I'll post a new chapter every Monday, and then one on Thursday if the chapter is really short (like 500 words short).

* * *

 **Earl**

 _Random Excerpt: From A Time Long Past_

The summer night is chilly. Upon his position on the bed, he feels Road call to him, and sighs.

He's not about to ignore his family.

He slips out of the one-bed lodging room, but not before he pulls the blanket up on the small, sleeping form beside him. Brown hair peeks out from underneath thick covers, the sheet gently rising up and down with the boy's breathing. These were the only times that Mana could see Allen so relaxed, and a faint, affectionate smile smuggles its way past his conscious thought.

For this alone, he's willing to negotiate.

* * *

 **Earl**

He's back to watching children again. Particularly two disheartened earth-haired twins who recently lost both of their parents in a fire. Light from the street lamp is bright, a small candle that illuminated the children's cold skin. They sat still on the bench under the lamp, shoulders hunched—and the Earl can't help but wonder who the irresponsible imbecile was who let them wander by themselves right after losing their parents.

Not that he cares, really. He's only arguing that if he had to take care of an orphaned brown-haired kid who just lost someone (like a kid whose dog friend was beaten to death by an old man—Cosimo, his mind unhelpfully whispers), he wouldn't be letting them out at night alone. He'd try to cheer them up, maybe even dress up like a clown. Children loved clowns, right?

"Little children," The Earl simpers, "where are your parents?"

Both kids barely lift their heads to look at him. Instead, they remain silent, almost as if they did not hear him. Still, the Earl isn't deterred. Most humans whose loved ones passed away in horrific accidents tended to be unresponsive to his pestering.

"Quite the blaze this morning, eh?" He is behind them now. "Hears the fire took down a lovely couple, too."

He notices the children's shoulders tense, fists clench, and he knows that he's got their attention now. After all, there was only one fire in town today and only one set of twins whose parents died in a fire.

Perfect.

"Perhaps you'd like to see your parents again?"

Two new akumas, all in one reaping. He summons two brand new akuma skeletons when his keen ears catch a disturbance from the left. How… positively ill-timed.

Loud shouts come closer to where the twins and the Earl is, but it is the dead of night. He's half tempted to send an akuma to punish the cause of the commotion but decides against it. He curses, perhaps he will come back to these poor human larvas at a later time. He merges himself with the shadows right in the nick of time. A small cloaked figure runs past the Earl's hiding place, and the Earl catches a flash of white hair. Behind the escaping man, a horde of running, yelling men rush past the Earl's place in the shadows, all in hot pursuit of the now blurry cloaked form ahead.

What are these humans up to?

"You little brat!"

"Your master stole my woman!"

"Come back here! You're his son, right?"

"Your master—"

"—Or father—"

"—Owes me six rum-barrels worth of silver!"

"He owes me, too! And you're going to pay for it!" This prompts a series of fiery agreement from the group.

Despicable. From what he heard, the Earl could conclude that the fleeing small man ahead of other humans was the son of an alcoholic, cheating father with a debt problem. A small surge of hatred flares through him. Humans. This was the scum his family was going to clean the world of.

They would deserve whatever was coming to them.

He looks back at the bench where his targets, the twins, were and finds them gone. Another time, then. Grief was not easy to get out of.

The Earl is about to shrug this off and leave, but the cloaked old man escaping the mob of enraged debt-collectors trips. And _oh_.

Oh no.

The Earl's eyes widen. What he previously conceived to be an old man stuck with his shameless father's financial problems turned out to be something much dearer. The figure with the cloak trips and the long cloth hiding the identity of its user falls off. As it flutters to the ground, it reveals the small, petite cowering form of a child.

The men flood around the little boy.

No.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm penniless!" The kid cowers. "Ayeee! Please don't kill me!"

* * *

Admittedly, he doesn't think things through as much as he'd like to say he did.

He had been thinking a lot lately, what with children and akumas and the heinous Innocence consuming his thoughts. He had assumed that all this brain exercise meant that he had a lot more self-control than he actually did. He's held himself back from getting close to any human in the last thousand years. He had contained himself from simply murdering all the puny insects within the walls of the Black Order, if only to follow the plan.

He has proven multiple times that he has a lot of self-control. But as soon as he sees the kid's terrified (and scarred) face, even with the curious white wig, all thoughts of leaving the child to its fate immediately self-destruct in his head.

"Unhand him."

* * *

 **Allen Walker**

Master Cross is the worst. Really.

Allen is starting to see a pattern here. The first time, the two of them had barely escaped. The second time, his master had kicked and sacrificed him to the blood-thirsty lot of people his master had owed. This time, the man had mysteriously disappeared moments before the mob had found Allen. He looks back to the promise of murder in the eyes of people he owes way too much money. Even though it wasn't Allen himself who drank alcohol. Or borrowed money. Or flirted with married women.

Why do these debts always end up on him?

"Eeeek!" He ducks, covering his head with his long-sleeved arms, his gloved fingers expecting a blow. He considers trying to use his innocence. With it, he might be able to frighten his pursuers off. Yet. He's not about to misuse the power that had killed Mana,

Mana.

Fondness bubbles up within him at the thought of his adoptive father, and it's like he's rejuvenated. Mana would not have attacked defenseless men. Mana would have stayed strong. He could do this.

For Mana.

He would survive this, become an exorcist, and protect people from the Millennium Earl. Allen frowns, he would save the akuma from the clutches from that phantom, too. He hates the Earl. Nobody should be condemned to suffer like his stepfather and other human souls trapped inside akumas. His line of thought would have gone longer if one of the men that Master Cross pissed off did not lift him up by the scruff of his dress shirt.

He was dead meat. In second thought, maybe he wouldn't live to be an exorcist.

"Unhand him." Allen barely hears it, as it was said so quietly. But the force that came with the command was such a strong demanding presence it stilled the men around Allen.

Who, Allen wondered, said that? He craned his neck from its position very close to the hand lifting him up the ground.


	3. Chapter 3: Who Are You?

CHAPTER EDITED: 11/24/2017

Summary: The Earl begins to remember his days as Mana Walker. He soon realizes his greatest enemy may be his own beloved son.

Notes: To anyone who read the last chapter already, I've added these things I'm calling random excerpts starting chapter two. They're kinda important, but! they won't appear in order. Thanks for reading!

* * *

 **Earl**

 _Random Excerpt: From A Time Long Past_

The world burns like a funeral pyre. Shots from the level one akumas make the air beat with booming cannons. His cackling level twos scour the crumbling streets, their victims shrieking raw and bloody with futile cries for mercy.

His eyes surveyed the burning town, dull and apathetic to the atrocities below him. Hundreds of bodies littered the bricked floors, some scattering to dust from his akuma's blood. All this pain and suffering. Maybe he had cared once about it. He probably used to feel something. But not anymore.

His heart is turning to ice, and he feels the cold seeping from his chest to the hairs on his scalp to his toes. It is chilly, despite the warm inferno that used to be a town, despite the hot blaze that taints the dark skies bright with reds and oranges. It is cold.

It is _cold._

Just like the small body that was slowly losing heat, the limp child he had cradled in his arms with glassy eyes that stared forever at distant lands. He should have expected it when he adopted a human. Perhaps he should have left the child alone that night, never even met him.

Yet.

For a second, he can see his impish smile, and he can't come to regret their meeting. It's such a sincere and lively grin that it seemed hard to believe that it came from an owner who had lived in darkness most of his entire, short life. The world blurs, and his eyes capture a little child. It runs towards him, hugs him tightly as if telling him to hold on. Never let go.

 _Mana_ , he imagines it called. For a second, it's warm.

But only for a second.

Because in the next instance, the innocent smile has turned scarlet with blood, and there's bruises on the child's pale cheeks that weren't there before. He can see red, _oh so red_ liquid staining the floor beneath.

And the cold is back again.

In front of him, the world smolders in cinders and broken futures. Behind him, more akumas descend into the town. Above him, the moonless night; dark stars looking down on his crime. He clenches a gloved fist. Let heaven declare him unforgivable, let hell sing his name.

His peace with mankind is over. They will rue the day they took his son away from him.

He calls the family to him. He's dallied long enough.

It was time to purge Earth clean.

* * *

 **Allen Walker**

That suit, that top hat, that build. It's so uncannily similar to his adopted father that the first word that runs through Allen's head is _Mana._ Hope buzzed at him. Mana's dead, his brain quips as his heart thunders.

"Unhand him." The man commands again, and it sounds so much like Mana that Allen can't help but imagine that it really is Mana. But he internally shakes his head. He can't start turning every person who resembled Mana into his father. The man who became his family was more precious than that.

Allen shifts his attention back to the real world. Nobody has done anything. It seemed like the man's presence intimidated the debt collectors, and he's not sure if they're going to make a move soon. The stunned silence is pervading. It scratches seconds into hours, and strains his hyper awareness. Allen was taken aback when someone finally does do something.

The buff man who was holding him up several feet up drops Allen on the cold, cobblestone floor.

"Oof!" Allen winces, landing on his behind. That was not how he hoped his reunion with the floor would go. He tried not to rub his sore back too much. He's been in this situation before when people used to hunt him down for his deformed hand. It was better to blend silently with his surroundings unless Allen wanted to attract people's attention to him again. The tall man above him cracks his knuckles threateningly.

"Tch. Ya should run 'long, prissy noble." The man jabs a calloused finger in Allen's direction. Eeep. "See this kid here? This brat's master owes us. A. Lot."

This seems to break the rest from their stupor, and loud cries of agreements quickly back the tough-looking man up.

The man who told the others to let Allen go is calm, not bothered by the fact that he was one man against many. Why did the man even stop these people? Allen has no recollection of ever meeting this man before, even if the guy looked very much like Mana.

So…. Mana...man?

Mana-man just stands still, and makes no indication that he heard the buff man. The crowd is uncertainty is apparent, unsure what Mana-man's reaction would be. Allen's skin prickles with the rising tension in the air, and it terrifies him. He doesn't want the man in trouble. How would Allen pay for all that Master Cross had swindled. Allen himself doesn't have any money. How would he pay them back?

Pay…

Mana and he used to get by doing small performances. Maybe he could do the same? Instead of performances, maybe he could… work to pay the debts? How ingenious! He could just work for them until he did enough to pay back what his master owed! This way, the Mana-man wouldn't get harmed for trying to save him.

Resolute to take ownership of his stupid master's financial problems (only for this time, he swore. He'll get Master to pay them next time for sure!) he's about to voice out his solution when an unexpected question steals his spotlight.

"How much?" _What?_ "How much does he owe you?"

Did he really hear that?

Allen can't believe his ears. No, no. He shakes his head. There was no way Mana-man would volunteer to pay for the money that Allen's master owes. Most likely, the man was simply curious to know how buried in debt a little kid like him could possibly be. Allen stomps on the small sproutling of hope that had grown when the man asked his question. He couldn't be _that_ lucky.

"100 silver coins!"

"Three hundred and fifty-nine plus the wreck he left in my bar!" As if eager to prove that he owed them an enormous sum, the humongous amount of debt he'd have to give back somehow is revealed to him as the crowd shouts out three digit numbers.

Eeeeeh? Allen feels himself shrink - he changes his mind. There was no way he could pay all that! That'd take years! Years! How is he going to become an exorcist if he has to work to pay all that? That's impossible!

Mana-man raises a gloved hand to silence the large number of men, and it works. Everyone is curious as to what he is about to say, except for Allen. Here it is, he mourns. He's gonna leave him here, and leave him to the mercy of the people that had it in for his master's guts. Allen bites his lips. He doesn't know why the thought of it makes him want to cry.

The noble puts his hand inside his coat and pulls out one heavy-looking bag. Where did he hide that, Allen briefly wonders? Mana-man shakes it, and the loud clinking of coins echo from the bag.

"There's enough money here to pay for a small army of men. Release the kid," the man looks condescendingly in their direction, "And you can have it."

Release the kid. You can have it.

Translation: I'll _pay_ for everything, let him _go._

Allen's mouth drops.

 _No. Way._

He can't believe his ears, and it seems like the other men didn't either because nobody moves to accept the angel, God-sent, _saint_ of a human's offer in front of them.

But the angel wasn't as patient as he seemed because without bothering to hear an affirmation, saint Mana-man throws the huge coin bag in their direction, and thousands of golden coins _rain_ everywhere. Light from the lamp catches on the coins, and the night sky is alight with glinting gold. It falls from the air like a star shower. The sound of coins ping on the pavement, twanging throughout the streets.

The men go _scrambling_. They take to the floor, and there's pushing and shoving and grunts as they fight each other for the money.

Allen is left gaping and forgotten. He just stares at all of them stupefied. He can't process whether he's finally gone 'round the bend, or if he was still grounded in reality. Who throws gold like it's nothing? Mana-man, apparently.

A hand grabs him by the shoulder, and he jolts. He looks up to see a mischievous-smirk on saint Mana-man's face, like a secret that Allen should know but doesn't. Mana-man holds a finger over his lips. Now that he can get a really clear look at the man's face, he can't help but gasp. He really looks like Mana. How is this possible? He feels something stuck in his throat. He stares at saint Mana-clone dumbly.

But the man grips Allen's right arm, helps him stand up. Then they're running. Nobody stops them, nobody notices their escape. The two run into the night.

* * *

Allen's brain is malfunctioning and he can't pay any attention to where they're going. All he can think about is that Mana has been cloned, why does this man look so much like him? Maybe Mana had a twin? Was Mana-man Mana's angel ghost? So lost is he in his own thoughts that he doesn't notice when the man suddenly stops running, and Allen crashes into the man.

He sees the surprised look of Mana-clone and he feels a blush creep up his face. He jumps back, stammering apologies, mortified beyond belief.

"It's okay," the man smiles forgivingly. The man rubs the back of his neck, "It was my fault, suddenly stopping like that."

"No! I should have been paying attention!" Allen shakes his head vigorously. He can't let the Mana clone feel like it's his fault! He had been nice enough to help him, too.

Speaking of help… Allen fidgets. He has not a penny in his pocket. He doesn't know if the man realizes that he can't pay him back. And enough money to hire an army! A small army, but an army nonetheless!

Allen looks up at the tall man; He can't afford to pay him that much.

"Um…." He could do this. He _could_ do this.

"Hmm?" Mana-clone raises an amused eyebrow.

"Thank you for saving me! But I can't pay you back right now! Please let me work for you until I pay all of it back!" He bows deeply, freezing in his position. It's over. Mana-clone will turn him down for sure.

He's expecting anger, some scorn, and maybe even disappointment. Perhaps Mana-man had thought that Allen's master could pay him back, but Master Cross is not a rich man. Mana-man would hate Allen. What he wasn't expecting was the snicker, the mirth, and definitely not the amused laughter.

"It's alright. I paid because I couldn't let such a young child possibly pay for that by himself." Mana-clone rubs his white hair. His hand is warm.

Allen can't believe it. There really are humans this kind. And with Mana's face, too. Maybe men who had dark black hair, dark eyes, and generally looked like Mana were all nice men? He ducks his head, hiding the warmth on his face. It's joy, in a way.

"Wha-! This wig is really soft." The man exclaims, messing with Allen's hair. "Speaking of wigs, why are you wearing white hair?"

Eh? Wig? But he's not wearing a wig? He tilts his head in confusion.

"Um… This is not a wig." Had Mana man thought he was wearing a wig this whole time? Allen pulls on one of his locks. "This is my actual hair."

The man is dumbfounded for a second. He sees dark eyes widen in surprise.

"Oh." The man laughs. Allen doesn't know why. "That works, too."

Oh.

"Aren't you going to wonder why?" Allen asks. Everyone else questioned his hair, surely this man wanted to know, too, right?

"I don't need to know the reason." The man smiles, and it reminds him so much of the smiles that Mana had. "Your hair looks fine, anyway. And soft, very soft."

Is this… Is this... Acceptance? Something akin to happiness spreads from his chest. He hadn't felt this happy since that time.

He's about to (do something, anything), but Mana-man stiffens.

What's wrong, Allen wants to ask him, but Mana-man abruptly looks up beyond him.

* * *

"Brat!"

That voice - Master? He turned and sees…. _Not_ his master. Behind him is another man he doesn't know. Dressed in a suit, and black short hair. The face is much more angular, too. Clean shaven.

"Um… Who are you?"

"Stupid Apprentice! Forgotten your master already?" He doesn't look like Master Cross, but that voice.

"Master Cro-?!" Not-Master Cross covers his mouth. What in the world is going on? His master glares at the Mana-man. Mana-man doesn't look too pleased either. They look like they're having a glaring contest.

"I thank you for taking care of this wayward pupil of mine." Not-Master Cross addresses Mana-man reluctantly and drags Allen in the other direction.

But!

But he hadn't even gotten to properly thank Mana-man!

Allen can't go like this.

He wrenches himself free from not-Master Cross, ignoring the startled grunt that not - Master Cross gave him, and sprints back to Mana-man.

* * *

"Brat!" He hears his master call. Allen doesn't know what he's doing, but he doesn't stop. He runs to Mana-man, arms spread wide-and he, well, he - Allen hugs him.

The man is like a statue, frozen solid. Mana-man has no reaction at all. Allen began to regret hugging the man. What if Mana-man hated hugs?

For a second, he's half afraid that he's offended him, but the man lifts him up and then _hugs him back._ He buries himself into the man's neck and inhales. He doesn't smell like Allen's Mana did, but he expected that.

"Thank you!" He grips tighter, he feels the man tighten his arms, too. "Thank you for saving me!"

"It was a pleasure." The man's eyes are bright. "Always."

Father, Allen's tempted to call him. But that spot is reserved for Mana. Even if Allen's half-convinced that this man is Mana's soul watching over him.

"I'm Allen Walker," Allen holds up a hand after the man had set him down on the floor again. His cheeks flushed with joy.

"Adam." The man shakes his hand in formal greeting.

The man looks behind Allen again, and Allen's reminded that his master is still waiting for him. Eeeep. Before Allen can do anything, Adam (not Mana-man) takes off his top hat. He cleans it, dramatically blowing some imaginary dust, and then places on top of Allen's head! "I won't keep you waiting. It was nice meeting you, Allen Walker."

Before Allen can make a stuttered T-t-thank you! and a What?!, his master's steely hand is back on his shoulders, steering him away from Adam. Allen glimpses behind him and finds that Mana-ma - Adam, he meant Adam! - is gone. So fast!

Even so, the hat sits warmly on his head. After a short distance, he and weirdly dressed Master Cross slow down. Allen lifts the gifted-hat from his head.

He observes that there are two blue roses on it, green thorny stems wrapped around each other as if in embrace.

Hugging it tightly to his chest, Allen silently vows to treasure this gift from Adam (Mana-ma - fathe - , his brain inaccurately adds) forever.

* * *

 **Earl**

The moment the child looks away, he is gone. He flees - _not flees -_ to the top of a secluded rooftop and bids his racing heart to calm. Who was that boy? He had looked so familiar, his heart twinges. _Remember, remember, remember_ -he chants in his head.

Who are you, Allen Walker?


	4. Chapter 4: Earl's Side of Things

CHAPTER EDITED: 11/24/2017

Thank you very much for all the reviews! I really appreciate them!

I don´t know if I´m supposed to reply to them or not, though... Am I?

I thought my original version of this chapter had the Earl too emotional, so I attempted to rewrite it. And now, he just seems like he doesn't care. So I tried to make him have more emotions in the second half. This chapter is a _mess_. My sincere apologies! I'll try to align the last chapters and see if that'll work.

I'm trying to learn how to write better, so bear with me. (Dogeza).

And! I need a lot of thoughtful critiques...

WARNING: Lots of overused words like but, except, easy, etc.

* * *

 **Earl**

 _Random Excerpt: From A Time Long Past_

He knows he could make akumas right now, but…

This child. What if he wakes up alone? What would his small, fragile heart think? What if he has a nightmare and he's not here to calm him?

That's plenty a reason not to go. It's not like he needs more akumas right now anyway, he reasons. He can stay here for now, like a dark guardian over this cherub.

Cherub.

Thinking of the annoyed, puffed up lips, and cute, narrowed eyes have the ghost of a smile on his face. This little one won't particularly appreciate that title. He threads his hand in the boy's brown hair, and lowers his head back on the pillow.

Yes, for now. For now, he doesn't need to make akumas.

* * *

 **Earl**

The Earl and the crowd stood at a standstill. Whether they paused because he asked them to, or they were terrified of his presence, he's not sure. It matters not what people think, or how people perceive him. What does matter, his heart whispers, is that child up in the air.

Lero nudges him behind his back, what are you doing?

He does not know what he's doing.

But the moment he gets a clear view of (familiar) amazed grey eyes, he is lost.

He knows those eyes.

Such expressive, familiar bright eyes.

 _Tiny gray eyes peer at him. A boy named Red. "I hate clowns."_

His head pounds and the fist-sized muscle in his chest thumped. He's not sure why - he's not sure about a lot of things.

Especially this one: what is he supposed to know when he sees his own mark?

How curious that a child would have it on his face like a scar. The Earl had not doubt that the kid did not voluntarily ask to have it. All things that belonged to him have that star. It marks the child as his, just like his akuma are his poor demented puppets.

And right now, someone was holding his ( _not his_ ) child up in the air. He'd rushed in, he might as well finish what he started.

"Unhand him." He repeats, and the one holding the boy drops him back to the ground. Bastard! The Earl sees the boy rub his back tenderly, and is taken aback with the force of his fury. The tall man who had held the kid cracks his knuckles threateningly, appearing to be the leader of these group of scums.

"Tch. You should run along, prissy noble." The man acts tough. "See this kid here? This little brat's master owes us. A. Lot."

The men agree with their leader, their raucous support ruins the silence of the night. Again. The leader subtly looks more confident. The Earl's tempted to handle this like how he's dealt with most situations: Drown these human waste with his akumas' bullets. He would order for their execution, except he doesn't want to traumatize the child. He's not sure why this one's different. He just is.

Right now, the only thing standing in the way of total massacre is a small child.

What to do? To kill or not to kill? What choices does he have that are non-lethal? None. He made killing weapons, not diplomatic maneuvers. He doesn't have a lot of experience making people do his bidding without an akuma bullet pointed to their head aside for…

 _Money_. Selfish, greedy men all loved their gold. He feels a horrid plan build in his mind and internally grins. The Earl shifts his attention back to the grown men who didn't mind manhandling children for the currencies and narrows his eyes.

"How much?" He mentally sends an order to Lero, who had grown quiet behind his back, to transport back to Sheryl and ask for a big bag of money. And then get back here just as soundlessly. Best not to alert any human to his sidekick. Sheryl will surely wonder why he needs money to make akumas. But the risk was worth it.

"How much does he owe you?" He asks.

And immediately regrets it.

The kid's master owes _a lot_. As the crowd keeps listing out ridiculously high sums, he asks Lero through their connection for a bigger bag of money. Holy cow. Maybe a better course of action would be to murder the kid's master instead. How could one man owe this much?

Then the Earl sees the kid's horrified eyes after listening to the same roll of financial ruin and reluctantly puts a lid on his deadly plans.

He feels Lero sneak back inside his coat and raises a gloved hand to silence the men. He reaches the other hand into his coat, and Lero hands him the heavy bag of money too bulky to have fit in his coat. He mentally sends Lero back to Sheryl - he needs only himself for this plan to work now.

He reveals to them his money, making a show of the clinking of coins as he shakes the bag. He relishes in the blank looks they give him.

"There's enough money here to pay for a small army of men. Release the kid," He gives them a look that clearly conveys how little he thinks of them. "And you can have it."

Nobody does anything, or say anything.

Maybe he broke them? Not all of them are broken, though as the kid visibly drops his mouth in shock. This is a huge amount of money that he's giving out to scum, but seeing the boy's astonished face made everything worth it. Not that it's a big victory. It just feels like a big victory. It's not.

Their inaction is pretty surprising. He had thought they would jumping to get their fortunes back using any means, even a child at that.

Was no one going to take the money? A little impatient, he chucks the gold coins in their direction. And gold falls _everywhere_.

Chaos follows.

He smirked. Humans and their riches. Works all the time.

The greedy men take off after the money, all thoughts of the kid and him probably gone.

He uses this to his advantage. He sneaks closer and puts a hand on smaller shoulders. The boy looks at him, rendered speechless by the absurdity of the scene before him. The Earl thinks that the white-wig the child was wearing was more absurd than this moment. Why white, of all colors? Maybe the kid was trying to pretend to be one of those stiff nobles with white wigs to symbolize wealth? Power?

He motions for the boy to be quiet, helps the lad unto his feet (his tiny fingers easily mold with his, like he's held them before), and they disappear into the streets.

* * *

Why is he going so far for a human boy? He asks himself as they run.

He's not sure why.

But something beckons him closer to the child, almost like he wants to steal the boy away. Wasn't that a very tempting thought? He's sure he can do a better job than the kid's current master. But then again, he himself wasn't very responsible.

As he had considered before, it's not that he doesn't want to. He would _love_ to.

Still.

What would he even do with a child?

He is snapped out of his thoughts when he finally senses that something had been following them for a while now. He narrows his eyes. Maybe it was one of the debt-men? Why would any of them follow their escape? Did they think he had more money? If they had been tracking the two of them for a while now, then there was no use running even more.

He stops, ready to face their stalker when he forgets one minor detail. He had stopped without warning, and the young boy he was pulling along… Well, the poor kid crashed into him. With a burning face, the boy jumps back, spewing apologies.

And the Earl can't help but notice how tall the boy actually is. No, the child isn't exactly tall. Yet, for some reason, he expected the boy to be… a little shorter, a little younger. It's the first time he actually gets to have a good look at the kid. He has a cute face - a little bit smudged with dirt - but an adorable one either way.

Really, something about this kid made him more charming than all the other kids he had seen before. And those cheeks. Do. Not. Pinch. Cheeks.

Where was the passiveness he was carrying earlier? He wants it back. Something about the boy awakens… these reactions that he had never felt before. Or felt like he had never had them before.

"It's okay," he barely remembers to say it. He rubs the back of his neck. "It was my fault, suddenly stopping like that."

"No! I should have been paying attention!" The kid furiously shakes his head. It felt very unusual. So polite. Why was the child so polite? It was weird how the child is so nice and sincere and _honest_ about his feelings. He expected… a tough exterior, maybe even a little 'Watch where you're going, old man!" or something.

Not that he knows why he thought the kid would be disdainful. Bah.

He needs to stop making these predictions of how the boy is supposed to be. It's not like he's met the kid before, right?

Right. Back to their stalker. Where are they? The Earl can't sense them anymore. He starts to grow a little apprehensive. A small sound from the kid has him focusing back on him.

"Um…." The kid had grown quiet, fidgeting. The kid unexpectedly bows to him. It was such an innocent sight, that it has the Earl itching to pinch the kid's cheeks. Again. Hruuuuuuuuuh. Self-control. Self-control. _Self-control._ "Thank you for saving me! But I can't pay you back right now! Please let me work for you until I pay all of it back!"

Note to self: Do not approach children. Especially non-spoiled grateful kids who would look nice as little clown assistants. Did he say clown? No, he didn't. The Earl laughs.

It is not an amused laugh, like he hopes it sounds like.

It's a laugh out of pain. Do not pinch. Do not hug. He has to have some dignity in being the loathful Earl. He repeats: do _not_ touch, do _not_ hug.

"It's alright. I paid because I couldn't let such a young child possibly pay for that by himself." His hand shakes with the iron will that he uses to hold them back. Just one touch. Just one! His eyes find itself drawn to the white wig. It won't be weird if he curiously pats the kid's head, right? It's perfectly normal to wonder why the boy chooses to wear white hair.

Oh.

It's soft.

That was not what the Earl expected it to feel like. It almost felt like real human hair.

"Wha-! This wig is really soft." He exclaims, messing with the hair even more. "Speaking of wigs, why are you wearing white hair?"

The boy looks confused. Tiny fingers pick out a lock of white hair and summarily tells him that it's his real hair.

His eyes widen. What? How? In all his years as the Earl, he has never met a white-haired child before. Not once. He looks back to the owner of the white-hair and laughs. How ironic! A young child with white hair, yet he, more than thousands of years old, had dark, youthful hair.

When the kid asks him if the Earl wants to know why a child has white hair, he smiles. He doesn't need to know the reasons. Genetics just worked that way. Besides, the white hair kind of grows on him after a while. Even if he was still itching to dye it brown.

He wants to say more, but he finally finds their stalker. Right behind the kid.

* * *

This was the kid's master? He'd expected a sleazy bum, but it's a wealthy-looking man in a suit with black hair. Something churns in the Earl's guts. This man left a kid to pay his debts. It doesn't put this man in a favorable light.

"Master Cro-?!" The kid starts, but his master prevents the boy from saying his full name. The man scowls at him, and he feels his own eyes throw daggers back. Watch how you treat your (knowing that the kid isn't _his_ burns like acid running down his throat) kid, he wants to telepathically pummel to the man.

"I thank you for taking care of this wayward pupil of mine." It clearly irked the man to have to say that, and the Earl can't help but relish the man's displeasure. However, that satisfaction popped when the kid's master begin to lead the little child away.

And something murderous and possessive growls within him. It would be so simple to just send an akuma after the boy's master.

Yet, he catches sight of those caring grey eyes looking back at him, and once again, those eyes undo him.

His wrath dissipates.

Was this it? This was something he shouldn't fight. The boy should stay where he belongs.

And the thought of that leaves him crestfallen. He had no right to stop them from leaving. After all, he's just a stranger to them. He's only the Earl, and it's better this way. He shouldn't get attached to humans anyway.

His heart throbs in dull pain. Go to him, it tells him. But he can't. He knows he can't. What would he do if he did? They'd still leave.

This was a mistake. He really should have left the kid by himself. He should have never come here in the first place.

And something he didn't know he had dies in him. His head begins to pound. He needed to stop this foolishness. It was simply a human child. The kid meant nothing more, nothing less.

Stop! Stop thinking.

His headache from before is back, and it's a full on migraine. A scene flashes behind his eyes as his head pulses in _agony._

* * *

 _ **"Look, it's the cursed kid."**_

 _"Oh, you're right…What's that man doing with it?"_

 _"Eh? Do you think he doesn't know?"_

 _"Why do you even bring that kid with you?"_

 _"It's bad luck to hang around the...disabled."_

 _Derisive whispers reach their ears, rude fingers pointed, and glares followed them around the town. No, it didn't follow them so much as it followed Allen around. He noticed them ever since he started hanging around this small, guarded child._

 _It didn't bother him, the opinions of lowly humans didn't matter. But to this little one, he knows it hurts him. The boy bristles at every insult, and juts his nose in the air like what was being said didn't matter._

 _Except when the boy thinks no one is looking (even if Mana is)._

 _His shoulders_ slump, _and his head hangs, and he seems to shrink smaller, seems to be more vulnerable to the world than he already is. He is tinier then, and his wary air around people starts to make sense. This boy holding his hand likes to act tough, but in the end, he's merely a child. He's been hurt before and Mana can see that the cruel words left cuts. They dig wounds so deep, the scars they leave will be just as painful._

 _They entered an emptier street. Worried grey eyes would glance up at him, then flicker away just as quickly._

 _"Their opinions don't matter." He assures him._

 _"But, Mana…." The boy hides his face with his brown hair, but he can still see the kid biting his lips, downtrodden shoulders, and his eyes are watery from trying to hold back tears. It is both a heartbreaking and touching sight. "You'd be better off without me. You would make more money, too, since they like you. People will treat you better."_

 _"I don't want to be a bother to you anymore." The voice saying them is shaky, and he can feel the boy trembling. "You'd be better off without me."_

 _Except that the hand he's holding is gripping tightly as if telling him_

 _ ** **don't go. Stay**** **.**_

* * *

Stop!

What blasphemy is this? He remembers no kid with disabilities, he knows not where this memory came from. The hallucination came and left so quickly, he's left reeling and confused by what it showed him. Who was that? Why was he with him? Was it even the Earl who had this memory?

He was so lost in his thoughts that his mind barely registers it when he feels small, warm arms wrap around his waist. What? What was going on? He looks down to see the kid hugging him.

He feels his brain short-circuit. This... The child is overwhelmingly warm, and he can't help but compare him to the boy he saw in his head. The only difference was that the kid he saw had brown hair and grey eyes, and this kid in front of him had white hair, an akuma star scar, and grey eyes.

But he likes this one better. This kid who broke away from his master to run to Adam, and left the kid's master staring at them in irritated surprise.

He feels the kid tense through the hug.

Oh no. Did he take too long to reciprocate? Before the kid could leave and think that he hadn't appreciated the small act, he lifts the little child up, and embraces the tiny figure in his arms.

And oh, how he fits so perfectly in his arms, like the Earl's done this before. An unknown feeling of endearment fills him, and he melts into this moment. There's something overly familiar about this embrace, and he savors the warmth it provides him.

He doesn't know why this makes him so… _happy_.

* * *

 _"You're right." He starts in a matter - of - fact attitude. "It would be much easier without you. People would let me in in bars, and I won't be refused from any of the hotels around town."_

 _The little boy looks like he's about to cry, but Mana knew he has to hear this. It was necessary to be said so that Allen understood._

 _"Life would be so much easier without a kid."_

 _Allen begins to pull away, but Mana grasps the child's hand tightly._

 _"It would be so much easier, but." He lifts the struggling boy_ up, _and settles him on his arm. "But who would I practice with without you? Who would I share the extra cup of hot cocoa with?"_

 _The kid looks astonished and confused - sadness forgotten - and that's how Mana knew he was getting through._

 _"Who would I tuck into bed at night when it's late? Who would I dance the Clown Dance with? Who else would wake up next to me in the morning with the funniest bed-hair?" If not you? He_

 _ **beams** at Allen, whose eyes have gotten wide. "Who else would be **my** little, adorable child?"_

 _"I think," he added, his voice softening, "I'd rather_ be with _a bother who's not much of a bother at all."_

 _And then the boy flushes scarlet, and oh no-_

 _ **why** is he **crying?** Shouldn't he be happier? Two steady streams of salty water drip down the flushed face and Mana can barely tell that this kid is fighting back a smile through his tears._

 _"So you see, I'd rather keep you with me." He's about to add more, but the boy slaps one tiny hand over Mana's lips._

 _"Sh-_ shu _-SHUT UP, OLD MAN!" Even Allen's ears have turned red now. "Don't say_ s-s _-such embarrassing things in public!"_

 _"But Allen, no one's around." He murmurs through the hands over his mouth as he pointedly looks to the left and right of them. They're on a deserted street._

 _He didn't know it was possible to turn even redder than Allen already was._

 _._

 _The boy may not know it, but he's already become an inseparable part of the man named Mana Walker._

* * *

"Thank you!" The small child mumbles from Adam's neck, and Adam holds him tighter. "Thank you for saving me!"

"It was a pleasure." And indeed it was. He's glad he wasted all that gold to save this child. He feels lighter than he's felt in years. "Always." He'll always save him. No matter what.

He sets boy down after a while.

"I'm Allen Walker," the child's cheeks are red, a grin so bright on the child's lips. The boy holds out a hand.

Allen? That's his name?

How uncanny that this boy has the same name as the one in his vision. Maybe he really did know this child? Surely, he would have remembered. Surely.

"Adam." He shakes the boy's small fingers. Really, why did they fit so comfortably? Adam doesn't mind where they are now, but he looks up. His hat tilts with his head as he notices the child's-Allen's-master having to walk back towards them. The man has annoyed face.

He's going to take the boy - _Allen_ \- away.

Adam wants to fight back.

Stay with me, he almost says.

By now Allen, too, remembers that he left his master behind to hug Adam (he's not feeling smug about it. Of course not).

What could he do?

He can't just whisk the kid away (do it! His heart urges). What to do, what to do? His hat shades his eyes from the lamplight in the streets. What could he do that wouldn't end in the murder of the man before him? A small breeze blows, and his hat sways.

His breath stutters.

His hat.

He could leave his hat! Brilliant!

He grins. Without further ado, he pulls his hat off his dark head. He theatrically cleans it, then fits it on the boy-Allen's-head. There, even if it's a little big

And that's when things went wrong for him.

Because the sight of his hat on the boy's head is _beautiful_. Beautifully significant, and he doesn't know why. And his heart is pounding.

 _I know you._

No, he didn't. He met the child tonight.

"I won't keep you waiting." He vaguely aims that at the man behind the boy's master. He hopes the kid doesn't notice how shaken he is. "It was nice meeting you, Allen Walker."

And then Allen is pulled away. As soon as the master, who is glowering at Adam, stomps away Adam is itching to be anywhere but here. Something (memories) he can't quite recall threatens to bury him.

* * *

The moment the child looks away, he is gone. He flees - not flees - to the top of a secluded rooftop and bids his racing heart to calm. Who was that boy? He had looked so familiar, his heart twinges. _Remember, remember, remember_ -he chants in his head.

Who are you, Allen Walker?

From his position on the roof, he watches the two figure walking away. Little Allen hugs his hat, and he feels himself soften.

Who the boy is doesn't matter.

"So…" He almost jumped. He did not notice when Lero had gotten back to him. "Who was that kid~Lero?"

"Allen Walker." He informs the umbrella.

Lero looks like he wants to ask more, but he doesn't even know what he's doing, nevermind why he's doing them. How could he answer anything? He swiftly transforms into the Earl. He looks exactly as he always does except that he does not have his hat with him. His bare head is uncomfortable and new. Lero opens its mouth to ask-

"Let's go, Lero." He opens up an ark door before the pink umbrella could voice its question, and jumps through. "We have more work to do."

* * *

 **Allen Walker**

"Brat. Throw the hat away."

"No."

It's been two weeks since that fateful night. Two weeks since he's gotten his new hat-the very same hat that Master Cross, who had de-transformed immediately when they got to their room, having apparently used the Grave of Maria to conceal himself (Allen asked why he felt the need to hide himself, but his master simply glared at air every time he did so), had been trying to throw away the last two weeks.

Allen has no idea why. It's a pretty cool hat.

He wears it everyday and everywhere barring the times when he's doing dirty work in the fields or at sea. He doesn't want to get it dirtied, and every time he looks at it, he thinks of the man who helped him. Mana-man, Adam. And can't help but smile.

Still in his thoughts, he wasn't prepared for the bag that would be thrown at him.

* * *

 **Marian Cross**

This brat…. He…

He won't throw the Millennium Earl's goddamned hat away. The sight of the Earl's top hat on the kid's head had nearly given him a heart attack. And that embrace. The Noah had seemed to like it. What kind of divine intervention made the fourteenth´s vessel friends with his sworn enemy? A dangerous man parading as Mana had rescued his pupil. Already, all the men he had owed money in this town were mysteriously dying. The only thing left of them were their clothes doused with sand as if they had disappeared on spot.

He can't believe this kid's luck. To have garnered the protection of the Earl's akumas from Cross' debts. He had been planning to make his apprentice work to pay the bills, yet at this rate, any debt he accumulated would result in a dead man. What have had his apprentice gotten himself into? He mentally despairs.

They're going to be on the move for a while, might have to disappear from the Earl's sight until this all blows over. He kicks his bag to the kid without any warning.

"Hurry up, brat." He kicks the door open. "I have some business in another town I wanna get to."

 _No, he doesn´t._

"Eh? So suddenly?" The brat looks up at him in disbelief, the bag safely clutched in the boy's stick arms.

"Brat?"

"Y-yeah?"

"We're upping your exorcist training."

* * *

EXTRA

* * *

 **Earl**

He's forgotten about Sheryl.

After he makes three more akumas, he had been ready to call it a night when he comes back to the Noah of Desire lounging gracefully on a chair, sipping wine. Waiting for him.

It had completely slipped his mind how inquisitive this man was. He had asked the man for the money he used as a diversion when he was saving Allen Walker. Now, he's about to pay for it.

The Noah looks up and gives a small noise of incredulity. He follows the angle of Sheryl's eyes and discovers it aimed at his naked head. Where his hat used to lie.

Then Sheryl smirked, understanding glinting in those dark eyes.

"Lero tells me that you had a pretty interesting night," the Noah of Desire starts. "Something about a kid, a pocket change, and now, it seems, your missing hat."

"Lero! I know what happened to his hat~Lero! He gave it to-"

"I gave it to a child," he finishes, narrowing his eyes at Lero. "I saved him from a mob."

Sheryl gives him a contemplative look before he leans forward. "Earl, have I told you about the benefits of having children?"

"What?" How did they get there?

"It's a fantastic feeling! Nothing more profound and more satisfying than watching your own little girl grow up. Take my Road, for example. She's the paragon of beauty, an angel-" Sheryl drones on about Road, and Adam settles in another chair beside the man. He lets the man talk, taking a ball of yarn and some knitting needles out of nowhere.

¨Ahem. Ahem." Sheryl coughs for attention after talking for a _long_ time. "As I was saying, children are necessary for the basic enjoyment of life."

At least someone shared his obsession with children. Then again… Sheryl really only loved one child: Road. Who was not a child.

"Have you considered _adopting_ the kid you saved?"

He almost stabs himself with the knitting needles.

"What?" Lero and him both exclaim.

"What are you talking about?"

"If you've truly saved him, then he must be immensely grateful."

His thoughts flashed back to Allen's gleeful expression and their hug. Yes, the kid had been grateful.

"He might not mind being adopted. Who would? He would be proud to have the Earl as his father." Sheryl pauses. "But, of course. He won't be able to compete with my Road in any way."

* * *

We're jumping straight to episode five or six after this.

 **Question** : Since I am rewriting a few scenes that I've already written, what would you like to see?

Any particular Noahs? Exorcist? Scientists?


	5. Chapter 5: Disaster

I. AM. _SO_. BACK!

I am so sorry for not updating for a while. If you know this fic in Archive of Our Own, you'll see that it should be complete after seventeen chapters. I had fifteen chapters already written (they're short, but they were the backbone). But I discovered a plot hole, and I changed some things and now this fic doesn't look anything like the way it started.

Thus, I am going to post the original version on its completed form, so that you guys can compare the original with this new version.

Once again, I am so sorry! Nevertheless, thank you for still reading this!

Here's the request list so far:

 _Miss_Spriter:_ Make characters that did not like Allen, like Allen. And then some that liked him dislike Allen at first.~~~like Road not liking Allen for taking the Earl's time.

 _Miss_Spriter:_ A scene where "Adam" is offering him a different life, but Allen can't accept because the Earl's current face reminds Allen too much of Mana and his promise to save akumas. And Adam's reaction to that promise.

 _GoOse:_ Lavi finds out who saves Allen and his reaction.

 _PoshNoah:_ Add Tyki in bond with Allen or just plain weirded out by the Earl's obsession.

 _Meerub:_ What the Earl will do when he comes across Allen again.

 _IfYouWish_ : Sheryl coaching the Earl to take care of a child. Earl gets rid of Cross (or the Order) to adopt Allen? Kidnapping?

 _Cutiepie120048_ : fondness between Sheryl and Allen - even if the former denies it.

 _Galimaufry:_ would love to see Tyki. Given that he bounces around as a hobo, it seems like he would be the most likely to run into Allen on a train or in a gambling den.

* * *

 **Earl**

CHAPTER 5 _Random Excerpt: From A Time Long Past_

This circus. He had just recently started working here and he already knows that while the rest were impressed, one man outright hates his guts.

Cosimo.

What an undesirable name. Fitting for an old bitter human like him.

 _Kill him. Kill him. Kill him._ He shakes his head, trying to get rid of the dark thoughts in his head. That was why he was on this vacation - the lonely and empty halls of the Ark stifled him. Everywhere he looked Neah was there. A question at the tip of his tongue: _why?_

Why? Why was he thinking that? What was he even thinking about?

Right. Cosimo.

After all, he had a pretty good idea who had hidden five of his juggling balls inside the tent crates-the very same person who had been vindictive enough to dump his hula hoops in the trash.

His poor, poor hoops. They deserved better.

 _He should kill him, gut him like the human pig the old crone was._ The idea has merits: he can get rid of his slow-witted human tormentor and not suffer through the whole business of pretending to be the nice, kind circus clown clueless to his bully. Neah would have hated to think that his older twin was being bullied. Again.

 _Neah. Neah. Neah._

He blinks. What was he thinking again?

His hula hoop - his poor hula hoops who he had found buried beneath other rubbish.

Cosimo had the irritating tendency to mess with his things. Although he was sure he could improvise on the spot, he still preferred having most of his equipment back where they were supposed to be. If it hadn't been for Allen, bless that dog, he would never have found his missing hoops and balls.

Speaking of Allen… Where was he?

 _Where was…._

Where was Neah? He wondered. He hasn't seen him in a long while. He briefly paused.

 _Has he? But… he's killed him. He's a murderer. He murdered his own brother._

He shook his head. Silly thoughts, why won't they leave him alone? Right. Allen.

Where was his Allen?

It was still pretty early in the morning, fog hiding many of the smaller tents surrounding the main circus tent from view. He strolled around the circus. Now where could that dog be? Usually he'd only have to whistle, and Allen would come running back to him. His dog wasn't inside with the other performers, nor was he back at their room.

Ah.

In the distance, he sees his dog next to a brown-haired kid, small fingers gently patting Allen. That child… Isn't he one of the young helpers around the circus? But the child looked a little off-the trademark frowning lips and sour eyes that he had grown accustomed to seeing whenever the kid gives him food is gone.

The expression of wonder on the boy's face, as if he has never seen a dog so docile before, is enough to leave him feeling slightly unhinged.

He suddenly feels like he has intruded on a moment he wasn't supposed to be privy, and can't help but feel bad when Allen finally notices him and barks loudly. The little kid his dog was with flinches.

But Allen runs to him, wagging his tail excitedly. He sighed-too late to back out now. He bends, and pats the dog's head.

"So this is where you've gone to, Allen."

Allen yips. The kid his dog left behind is watching them with a withering look. There's the dour face he's seen before. Perhaps he could ask the kid if he wanted to play with Allen more?

"I hope he wasn't bothering you - " He starts, but the child cuts him off before he even finishes.

"He wasn't. You shithead shouldn't be letting your fucking dog wander around, baka." The kid swiftly turns around and briskly marches back to the tents, leaving a shell-shocked clown and a morose Allen behind.

.

.

.

What a rude child.

It didn't occur to him then, but the thoughts that haunted him since his brother's betrayal had gone silent. For the first time in a very long while, he felt… liberated.

* * *

 **Earl**

CHAPTER 5.5 _Random Excerpt: From A Time Long Past_

"Papa? Like the hell Imma call you that, old geezer!"

"Aaah, but I really wanted to hear it - Allen calling me 'Papa!'"

"Sh-sh-shut up! Don't think about stupid ideas like that, baka! I-it's crap!"

He hunched. Lowering his eyes and putting on his best kicked-puppy face.

"Eeeeh? But… I really wanted _my son_ to call me 'Papa!'"

The boy's ears flushes with heat in an instant.

"Fu-!" Tiny right-hand slaps over a cursing mouth. Grey eyes quickly flicker away to anywhere but where Mana was crouching. Embarrassment drenches the little boy's body as Allen quickly pivots around, his tiny back to Mana. "Fuck! Fuck!"

"Allen…?"

"...a."

He doesn't quite catch it. He leans closer. "What?"

"I said PAPA, you motherfucker!" Did he just? Mana dodges a swift, but sloppy kick aimed at his head. "Don't make me say stupid things again, you deaf old man!"

Despite this, he can't help the wide grin that blossoms on his face.

* * *

 **Allen Walker**

"Timcanpy," Allen's eyes worriedly followed the fluttering golden ball trailing behind the caravan. "Don't fly around so much. What will we do if you get bitten by a cat again?"

Timcanpy flew closer, lazily circling his head before settling on top of Allen's hat. Allen felt the golem's weight settle and adjusted his head so that his friend wouldn't accidentally slip off. The fiasco-that the cat that had swallowed Timcanpy had brought-with officer Moore and her brother Mark who had turned into an akuma lingered on his mind.

The Earl was still causing so much sorrow. Inwardly, he hoped that Mark and his wife had reunited after death. That was why he was on his way to the Black Order. In order to become an exorcist that would free the tortured souls of akumas just like Mark's wife.

Because he was the only one who could see their chained and mummified spirits. Because he was the only one who could hear their cries of anguish. Allen felt for his innocence. With his left hand and his cursed eye, he promised he would save them.

The curtain behind where he was sitting pulled open. A clown and a bunny-themed lady greeted him.

The clown asked incredulously, "What-? You were bitten by a cat? I'm surprised you're safe."

Ah. They must have thought he was talking about himself. He shook his head. His gloved left hand pointed to the top of his head where he knew Timcanpy sat. "The cat had risen from the grave."

"Did you come here to do some sightseeing, traveler?" The bunny-lady pushed the clown aside when the man uttered a bewildered "What?"

"No," He smiled, and turned to look back at the two other occupants of the moving caravan. The hat that Adam had given him years ago swayed a little with his movement. " Just going to greet them at the headquarters of the exorcists!"

* * *

 **Horrifying Flashback**

"Allen." His master held the wine glass in his direction. "It's been three years since you became my apprentice. I think it's time you go about on your own…"

Eh? Did he really hear that? _Eeeeeeeh?!_ Surely, his master couldn't have meant….

His master paused, briefly muttering out, "Plus, it seemed like that man's family had finally stopped looking for you, you stupid pupil."

Allen didn't move. He didn't dare. He waited with bated breath. Red strands of hair covered his eyes, and he quickly pulled them aside.

"From today on, you carry the title 'Exorcist,'" His elation soared. "And I give you permission to stop dyeing your goddamn hair with that disgusting red paint. Just as long as-"

As? Allen wondered as he waited out the silence that had fallen his master.

His heart thrummed.

"-As soon as you burn that accursed hat."

And dropped.

"Eeeh? This hat?" Master still had a grudge on the present that Adam, who Allen had finally separated with Mana, had given Allen?

He had thought that his master had finally gotten over that (since the general stopped randomly shooting Judgement at the poor headpiece every time Allen wore it. ' _I'm going to exorcise that hat, stupid disciple. Move out of the way.' 'W-w-wait a second! Master!-' a bullet whizzed past Allen's head '-Aaaaaah! No! Please don't destroy it!'_ ). He pulled the blue-rose top hat off his head, in case his Shishou was planning to attack it like the old times, and sheltered it with his chest. "N-no. Master, I can't! This was a precious gift from Mr. Adam!"

Aaaaaaah! Master looked like he was going to kill him. Allen shivered, but he wasn't going to throw this headwear someone so kind had given him. He felt the burning glare from the red-haired general aimed at the top hat he was hugging protectively.

"Feh. Fine," His master turned to glare elsewhere. One hand clenched around a wine glass. "Keep that ill-fated old nightcap."

"Really?"

"It'll hopefully get pulverized by an akuma bullet while you're on your journey."

He wasn't going to let that happen. Allen patted the headpiece assuredly, unwrinkling the two blue roses up front.

"But, to officially become an exorcist," Shishou continued. "You must first come with me to the headquarters and greet the people there."

The headquarters? Where all the exorcists lived?

"You do know where the headquarters is, right?"

Shishou pulled out a small hammer. It wasn't much compared to the hammer that Allen used to stab giant nails to the ground once, but in the hands of his shishou… Allen gulped.

His master holds it threateningly in front of him.

Allen warily eyed the mallet and scooched back a little. Something was not right here. "...Yes?"

Master took a step forward, and Allen dragged himself backward. Just a little.

"I'll have my golem accompany you. I'll even recommend you to your superior, Komui…" Where was this going? Why was only Timcanpy going with him? Didn't master said that Allen had to come _with_ the general to headquarters? "When you wake up, go forth!"

Wait… When he woke up? Allen sweated. A lot. He saw master lift the mallet up.

"Don't tell me you're backing out of coming with me, master!"

And the mallet came crashing down.

 _Allen jolted awake._

He clutched his poor chest, panting like he had ran halfway around the world. He was back at the caravan he was hitchhiking on. The _clip-clockety_ of the horses hooves dragging his ride calmed him. An echo of the moment when the mallet had made contact with his head repeated itself in his head. Allen shivered. His master was a demon.

No… considering all that the womanizer had done… _more_ than just a demon.

"What happened?" The head of the clown from earlier peeked out from behind the curtains. "It seemed like you were moaning in pain…"

Allen smiled apologetically.

"Ah. I'm sorry for bothering you." Allen fixed his hat. "I was having a nightm-"

He was cut off by the sound of a cry. "It's an akuma!"

An akuma? Allen's mind leapt to action. There. It came from the dark alley his ride had just passed by. Allen grabbed his suitcase and jumped off the moving transportation.

"Thanks for the lift!" He remembers to call out as he dashes to get to where the akuma was on time. Timcanpy flies after him.

* * *

He was reminded again why it was a stroke of genius that Allen had two thick ribbons sewn to Adam's hat. Since being an exorcist required a lot of physical maneuvers, if Allen hadn't tied the hat to his head, he was sure he would have long since lost Adam's gift.

"Are you okay?! The akuma," Allen calls out as soon as he reaches the corner. "Where is it?!"

A group of men with pissed off faces greeted him.

"Um…."

"There aren't any akuma here." One of them, bald and with a short moustache, hit the helmeted head of a small boy Allen hadn't noticed was there before. "See Jan, just because you said you were gonna get killed…."

"Sorry, it was this guy's fault." The man points a burly finger down at the little kid, who wore a fierce frown. "He was screaming about an akuma, and messing with the adults."

"I'm not just playing around, idiot!" The boy vigorously rubs his bashed head. "There really is an akuma! They're slowly invading the world! My dad told me all about it!"

"Yeah, yeah. We heard you, here's a candy-"

Allen watched their interaction with a sweatdrop, and he's about to let it go when his left eye burns a little. He grit his teeth. So there was an akuma here.

Allen hid himself behind one of the brick walls. The others left. He activates his cursed eye, and zones in on the trapped soul seeping out of the unkempt, blonde man too close for comfort to the kid.

An akuma star grew on the man's forehead.

Allen tensed, and, swifter than what the human eye could see, slashed his Innocence through the akuma.

"You can't deceive my eyes," Allen's left eye looked back at the akuma who barely realized that it's soul had been freed. The body imploded, and the akuma skeleton inside crumbled to ash. "Rest in peace, akuma."

Allen watched as the mummified spirit was unwrapped, and a little boy's spirit beamed at him, finally freed as it rose up to the heavens. They looked like brothers, Allen thought softly. He hopes that they might be reunited in the afterlife.

The smoke from the terminated akuma's body stopped, and Allen sees the helmeted boy wearing a yellow and red sweater. Wasn't this the child who had called the akuma out earlier?

The kid catches Allen's eyes.

"Your name is Jean, right?"

* * *

Allen wiped off the lasts of the watery tears the boy's onion bomb had incited. He stood anxiously at the door of an odd looking house clutching his briefcase. He was glad that Timcanpy had followed the boy to his home-he hadn't thought that the child would have taken to his warning negatively.

Allen was still concerned about it… He knew it wasn't wise for children so young to become a target of the Earl. If Jean was killed by the Earl because Allen hadn't stopped the boy before it was too late…

The white haired soon-to-be-officiated-exorcist wouldn't be able to forgive himself. Pulling the odd doorbell, he supposed he'd convince Jean first to stop hunting akumas before he went to headquarters.

Bzzzt. Bzzzt. What an odd noise, Allen thought. Weren't bells supposed to ring something like _ding-dong_?

A maid opens the door and looks down the steps to Allen. She had a clown-painted face that made him sweat-drop.

"Um…. I heard that this is Jean's house. Is Jean here?" Allen straightened.

"Mr. Jean?" The maid nicely asked him. "He's here…"

"Can I-" Allen's eyes widened as the lady's form started tipping forward. "Waaii-!"

And the maid fell on him, bringing them both down onto the hard concrete floor.

Allen looks over the passed out person pinning him down, and sees Jean, his foot out as if… as if he had kicked the maid down on Allen.

"What did you come here for?" Leo grinned. "Did you come here to lecture me? I won't listen to you anyway, Hat Exorcist!"

"Je...Jean!" Allen wheezed, the weight of the person thrown over him crushing the air out of his lungs. "You... really nee….!"

"Let's go, Leo." Jean turned back as he skated away with a blonde boy.

"I…" Allen struggled to get the maid off of him. "I don't care anymore…." There was nothing he could do if the boy didn't want to be stopped right? He meant… rowdy boys wouldn't listen to him…. Probably.

Allen sighed, watching the two boys leave with their weird shoes when his left eye picks up an anomaly.

That blonde-haired boy…. An akuma's soul was attached to him. Horror dawned on Allen.

"W-wait, Jean!" Allen's warning fell on deaf ears as the two boys sped away. "That boy…!"

"Timcanpy!" Tim flies to him. "Follow Jean! I'll be there soon!"

* * *

"Leo's been dead for a long time. Ever since his mom's funeral." A jovial voice cheerfully announced.

He hears them in the silence of the night. A bright full moon illuminated the whole cemetery.

There was no mistaking that rotund figure looming over Jean and the akuma child.

"That… You disturbed me, and for that, he's the akuma that will punish you!"

"No… It can't be…" And something in Allen resonates with the dawning fright in Jean's eyes. The grinning Earl's beady eyes narrowed in glee.

Allen feels himself tense further. He _dislikes_ that the Earl treated people's sorrow with joy. He _dislikes_ that the phantom uses people's grief to lead them to bind their own loved ones as an akuma. He _hates_ that he himself had fallen for it.

Because if he hadn't…

If he hadn't…

"It's true." He climbs the steps to where the phantom and Jean stood. His eyes are shaded by his hat, but he has enough sight to see that the Earl had lowered his hands away from Jean. He activates his Innocence, and lets the glow of his giant clawed arm comfort him.

Somewhere inside, Allen feels like he stepped into a lit stage, about to enact an important scene in a play. He feels thousands of eyes watching, and a chill settles in his bones. "Jean, that boy is the Earl's akuma!"

The Earl's eyes focus on him, and Allen shrugs off his discomfort, picturing the phantom's cold eyes narrowing at him before they settle with a manic look.

The callous look Allen awaited lasts only for a second before it is gone.

In its place, Allen finds the Earl eyes wide behind glinting spectacles, and he can hear a shuddered intake of the freezing night air.

"...Allen?"

It's Allen's turn to narrow his eyes.

* * *

 **But I Loved Mana**

"Run…" Allen's gasping, small fingers trembling, clawing into the dirt as he attempted to stop his monstrous left arm. His left face drips with blood, and he can barely see anything with his left eye. "Run, Mana!"

He feels tears dripping down his smudged face, his brown hair sticking to his forehead, matted with red blood.

The trapped soul before him is terrifying, and that fact that it's Mana.

This was all his fault.

He shouldn't have accepted the offer. Now Mana was suffering.

But he loved Mana. He should have told him. He never did. I love you. I love you. I love you. _Papa!_ He chokes back another tear. He was a _coward_.

Even as Mana was bound to the metallic skeleton, some part of Allen didn't want his father to pass away again.

" _Mana!"_ His throat aches with his scream, but his left hand doesn't stop, dragging his body through the dirt. And he's killed Mana. Again.

Mana's talking again, and all Allen gets from it before his father is gone is a soft "I love you."

I love you, too. I love you, too. He tries to say. I love you, Papa!

He drowns in his tears, his vision blurs, and in the background, _he hears a chilly, delighted laugh._

It is the first time in this whole debacle that he truly comes to despise the Earl.

* * *

Chapter 5.5

 **Earl**

He had spent a long time searching. For a whole six months, Sheryl had even gotten the existing members of the family into it, too.

At the seventh month, he had ordered them to give up. Adam thinks that Sheryl is secretly still searching behind his back.

At the eight month, when even his akumas have stopped trying, the Earl still looks.

White hair. Grey eyes. Red scar. Maybe even his hat.

He had learned to avoid meeting people's eyes in the streets a long time ago, and he aimlessly wanders the town he had first met the boy.

"Do you know a little boy with white hair, grey eyes, with a scar on his face?" Adam asks one of the ladies in the bar one night. "He's this tall." Adam measures the boy's hat to be about his waist to the woman.

"Ooooh? Are you talking about little Allen?" Adam feels hope for the first time in months. He know his akuma in town had asked about everyone, but little information had slipped out. Not even about little Allen's master. Especially that despicable master. He finds no trace of the two in this area, and he wonders why. It was as if the two had simply never existed.

No one remembered them. For some reason.

But here. Someone was finally acknowledging Allen's existence.

"Do you know what happened to him?" Adam feels as if he is speaking through cotton. His first lead.

"I'd tell you, but that'll cost you a few coins, sweetie." She leans in, and he forces himself to stay. He eyes her smirk warily.

"How much?"

* * *

In the end, the woman disappears on him. A waitress passes by them and trips, spilling rum all over him and the woman he just paid eight gold to. He pays no mind to his soaked clothes, but the woman does.

The woman doesn't looks angry, (but something is off with her anger, and Adam thinks he imagines it, but he thought that the waitress who spilled the drinks winks conspiringly at his only clue to Allen) and leads him outside, saying that Adam might as well let her change because Allen's story was too long a tale and she couldn't tell it while freezing in her clothes.

He follows her to her place, which, to his not-surprise, is a brothel. He lets her change in her room on her own, other women eyeing him, but he stares rigidly at the wooden wall. When thirty minutes pass by and she still hasn't come out, a stone drops in his stomach, and he forces the door open.

There is a window, wide-ajar, and a long bedsheet tied to an anchor. The rum-soaked clothes are thrown on the floor, and as Adam makes his way to the window, he finds a long series of tied clothes making an escape route to the first floor.

The woman had ran away. Anger courses through him, and he has the whole place searched by the akumas he has in police for days, the rest of his weapons searching in nearby places.

He bites back a scream as his lips bleed with how hard he was biting on them. His first step to finding Allen and he let it _escape_.

* * *

 **Eliza**

She roughly chews on a chicken bone, gnawing every hint of meat until she finds no more. She throws it when she finds no more. She looks up to see people staring at her graceless actions.

And she simply arches an eyebrow, daring them to do something. They don't do anything but look away.

She wipes her face clean, eyeing her fancy meal. Eight gold coins. Man, Cross had been right. The guy had been filthy rich. She throws a gold coin at her table before walking out.

"Thanks for the food." She barely acknowledges the disapproving glances sent her way.

She slips back inside the inn and into her room unnoticed. Her fingers hook onto the telephone, dialing the numbers on her screen.

The person on the other side picks up.

"Whad d'you want?" She held back the urge to face palm. She wants to say that he's probably drunk and that's why this is what he says the first time he picks up a phone but. She knows him better than that. She's not going to make excuses for his lack of tact.

"You were right. The weird hat man is still after your son."

"Eliza! Ah, always straight to the heart of the matter." The general's tone changes, becoming much softer and luring. It's something she knows many women had fallen for, but not her. "I love women who are tough like you, too."

"Uhuh." She simply sighed. She had sworn herself to help the Order, but really, this man was a general? "I would suggest laying low for as long as you can, Cross. He might've caught on that you're both hiding."

* * *

 **Earl**

One year later, and there's no more hope. Even for Adam. He sets his eyes elsewhere, on more important matters even as his dreams replay over and over how he should have just grabbed the white-haired child, how he should have stolen the boy from his master.

He has stopped frequenting the town where it all happened. He can't bear the tearing in his chest whenever he is there, knowing what could have been. He buries the memory of that sweet child in the deepest corners of his mind.

He stopped the searches, though it took a lot out of him to admit defeat. Something in him calls for him to bring Allen home ( _bring him home_ ). He's used to losses. This is merely one more. He'll get over this.

And he had.

For a while, at least, because he had not thought much of the stranger until through his Earl costume he sees two blue roses, bright in the moonlight.

The moment his eyes land on the approaching figure with that hat on, he loses his grip on his memories. He is flooded with a brown-haired child and a white-haired one.

 _He helps the lad unto his feet (his tiny fingers easily mold with his, like he's held them before), and they disappear into the streets._

" _Mana? Is this how you write the 'm'?"_

" _He wasn't. You sh*thead shouldn't be letting your +%$ dog wander around, baka."_

" _Papa."_

 _"I'm Allen Walker," the child's cheeks are red, a grin so bright on the child's lips. The boy holds out a hand._

"...Allen?"

The child had grown, definitely with a growth spurt or two to help him. Adam knows that if he takes off his costume, the little child would probably reach his chest now. The thoughts _I missed him growing up_ and _he wears the hat I gave him_.

An emotion akin to pride surges in him, but he stomps it out. Allen was looking at him distrustfully. Adam can't afford to weird him out further.

"So you still remember me, Millennium Earl."

Remember him? What was Allen talking about?

Instead, he exaggerates a head tilt, easing his Earl costume's features to appear less threatening. He didn't want to scare Allen.

"Have we met before?"

Allen ignores him, turning to the two children the Earl had all but forgotten about.

"Jean," Allen starts, his voice was soft, a little too delicate for a boy. His hat on Allen's head sways with the wind. "That is only the physical appearance of your friend, and underneath lies a weapon of 'the Earl of the Millennium' called an akuma."

Adam feels ice seep into his heart. How did Allen know so much?

"Young boy, you seem to know a lot about my children." He's glad that his costume hides away his true emotions from the rest of the world. All he wants to do is take Allen _home_.

"Good evening, Earl. I'm your enemy." Grey eyes were trained solely on him, and in any other situation, Adam wants to cherish it. But there was hate in those clear grey eyes that he wasn't familiar with. It contrasted with the gentleness that he had come to treasure in his memories. Allen motions towards his left hand, and the ice inside him grows.

Adam had forgotten about the weird arm in his joy in finally finding Allen. That despicable green glow, that cross that stood out as if taunting him. A metallic looking hand. He remembers a clawed hand just like that. He also recollects a memory of a little boy and his adopted father. He feels his breath start to hitch, but forces himself to calm down.

"You're an… exorcist?"

"Cross! Destroy the akuma!" Once again, Allen ignores Adam. The boy readies his Innocence and lunges straight towards the direction of Leo, one of his latest akuma. "And purify the soul!"

Adam thought that Leo the akuma was a goner for sure, but Jean the foolish child stops Allen from killing his friend. The boy argues with Allen, but Adam can't focus on that. When did Allen get in contact with that Innocence?

Was this why Adam couldn't find him anywhere? Because the godforsaken Order had taken ( _his)_ child? He hadn't noticed it the first time he met the white-haired child. Did Allen become an accomodator after?

(No. He couldn't have. Red arm. Deformed. Green cross. _Orphan_.)

A sudden fear grips him. _That claw was really sharp_ , and there's a phantom pain of being torn in half. _He wants Allen to live. He doesn't want to turn him into an akuma._

" _Mana! Run, Mana!" Somewhere, a little boy cried. And his vision is split._

It was like he was seeing two versions of the events that night that _he had tried to make small, sweet, precious Allen into an akuma._

H҉e҉ w҉a҉n҉t҉s҉ t҉o҉ m҉a҉k҉e҉ t҉h҉i҉s҉ c҉h҉i҉l҉d҉ a҉n҉ a҉k҉u҉m҉a҉.

n̸o̸! n̸o̸! l̸i̸v̸e̸, a̸l̸l̸e̸n̸!

 **n͉̠̙͉̗̺̋̋̔ͧ̊o͎̜̓̇ͫ̉͊ͨ͊.**

N͉̠̙͉̗̺̋̋̔ͧ̊o͎̜̓̇ͫ̉͊ͨ͊.

l͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨi̞̟̫̺ͭ̒ͭͣv̪̩̜̜̙̜ͨ̽̄e̮̟͈̣̖̰̩̹͈̾ͨ̑͑, a̘̫͈̭͌͛͌̇̇̍l͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨl͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨe̮̟͈̣̖̰̩̹͈̾ͨ̑͑n͉̠̙͉̗̺̋̋̔ͧ̊! **l͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨi̞̟̫̺ͭ̒ͭͣv̪̩̜̜̙̜ͨ̽̄e̮̟͈̣̖̰̩̹͈̾ͨ̑͑**!

* * *

 **Allen**

"W… why is Leo an akuma?"

"Jean…" Allen stopped, his Innocence inches away from stabbing Jean, who was protecting him.

"He's my friend! We even started going on patrol for akuma together." Jean, Allen felt his heart go out to him. "How the hell can he possibly be an akuma! What kind of proof do you have!?"

He noticed movement behind Jean, and his eyes widens in alarm. Leo was shaking, looking like he was having a seizure.

"L͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨi̞̟̫̺ͭ̒ͭͣv̪̩̜̜̙̜ͨ̽̄e̮̟͈̣̖̰̩̹͈̾ͨ̑͑!" shouted the child akuma before the friend that Jean had been protecting against Allen's Innocence transformed into a weapon. Several cannons aimed at Jean.

"L͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨi̞̟̫̺ͭ̒ͭͣv̪̩̜̜̙̜ͨ̽̄e̮̟͈̣̖̰̩̹͈̾ͨ̑͑! L͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨi̞̟̫̺ͭ̒ͭͣv̪̩̜̜̙̜ͨ̽̄e̮̟͈̣̖̰̩̹͈̾ͨ̑͑! L͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨi̞̟̫̺ͭ̒ͭͣv̪̩̜̜̙̜ͨ̽̄e̮̟͈̣̖̰̩̹͈̾ͨ̑͑!" Allen tensed-why was the akuma chanting that?

"Leo…." He saw the moment Jean figured out what was being pointed at the back of his head.

This was bad, Allen thought. He needed to reach Jean before the akuma fired. He runs, getting in front of Jean before the first bullet hits.

His right side gets the brunt of the poisonous akuma bullets, and black stars start to travel up his arm. Allen slides down to his knees, bearing with the pain.

* * *

 **Earl**

No. Oh no.

When he finally comes to his senses, Allen is down. His panic rockets as he jittering-eyed his poison travel up on Allen's skin. It climbs on Allen's face.

He doesn't notice when his feet puts him right in front of Allen. He barely comprehends that he has dropped down on his knees.

No.

He stomach churns with dread, and no.

No. The realization that he had killed Allen.

He k̲̱̠̞̖ͧ̔͊̇̽̿̑ͯͅi̞̟̫̺ͭ̒ͭͣl͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨl͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨe̮̟͈̣̖̰̩̹͈̾ͨ̑͑d̥̝̮͙͈͂̐̇ͮ̏̔̀̚ͅ Allen.

Something wet drips down his face, and Adam drops Lero on the ground. No. Just when he had gotten him back.

 _Like when Allen had died before him._

 _Bloody. Bruised. Lungs heaving their last breath. Then with one last smile, he was gone. And life and pain trickled out of the grey eyes he had come to love so much._

His quivering hands don't stop pulling until he has Allen in his arms. It was a mockery of their first (not first. Not first. NOT first) hug. Allen was still warm, and he can't bear the thought that this body would soon crumble to dust after the poison has gone through it. He buries himself in those white hairs, the hat he gave the child a long time ago surprisingly still on Allen's head.

.

.

This was all his fault.

.

.

.

He wasn't prepared for the kick that the boy in his arms sent him.

* * *

 **Earl**

"What are you doing, Millennium Earl!" Allen jumps back from him, leaning heavily on his left side.

"Allen, I'm so sorry." He reaches out for Allen again, but the boy pushes himself farther this time. "I…."

He struggles to explain himself. "I…"

"Allen!" He hears a shout from the boy who caused it all. The boy goes to _his_ Allen's side, fretting. "Allen, why did you save me?"

"Jean. It's alright."

Ah. That's right. This wasn't his fault.

It wasn't.

It was the boy's.

If the brat hadn't been messing with his akumas, warning weak humans away, Adam wouldn't have come here. Adam wouldn't have hurt k̲̱̠̞̖ͧ̔͊̇̽̿̑ͯͅi̞̟̫̺ͭ̒ͭͣl͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨl͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨe̮̟͈̣̖̰̩̹͈̾ͨ̑͑d̥̝̮͙͈͂̐̇ͮ̏̔̀̚ͅ Allen.

He has his level one akuma train his cannons at the brat again. But Allen notices, and pushes the child behind him again with his left hand.

He can see no end to this night but disaster.

* * *

Feel free to tell me what confuses you, and what other suggestions you have. I'm still rewriting a lot of the previous chapters.

And I appreciate any help on catching my grammatical errors!

ALSO! This chapter originally had 11,000 words. I'm sorry. (hides face).


	6. Apologies Original

**Remember My Son Chapter Six**

 _The contents of this chapter has been made into its own story, **Learning to Hold**. Please move on to the next chapter to continue reading RMS._

 _Thank you._

 _(New chapter will be uploaded Thursday at approximately 11:59AM, Western Time)_

* * *

 **READ. THIS.**

I made a mistake when I was editing the chapter. During my long period of absence, I had made a bunch of what-if scenarios in my head for the last chapter. I thought I had posted the other one...

I read the reviews the first day I posted and one helpful comment was that the swear words I censored was a little distracting, so I changed those few words at the beginning back to their uncensored form.

I first noticed something was off when the top comment from curiously wondered why I censored swear words in the chapter when I didn't earlier.

And I was just like... "?" There's more censored words? But the only version that should have that is the... (EYES BULGING IN PANIC)

I didn't post THAT version, did I? And I went back to read the whole chapter this time (four days ago) and died when I realized that I did post this version. It explains why the time-skips were even sloppier than usual.

And then I wasn't sure if I should change it now when other comments (thank you very much for them! I really, really appreciate them!) said how excited they were with Adam remembering everything... so... I kept it.

I'm so sorry for the mixup! If you want to keep going with last chapter's events, please tell me so I can keep it.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

 **CHAPTER SUMS:**

This is the original, short and sweet version.

Thank you for all the support!

The notes in the beginning and end are apologies. I hadn't originally planned to try to figure out why the Earl doesn't remember Allen. Now I do have a plot for that, and that is why the current Remember My Son (RMS) has this theme of Mana thinking Allen is dead.

* * *

He watches children dart in and out of the crowded streets; their little feet made rapid thudding claps on the cobblestones. Tinkling, exuberant shrieks and giggles light up dull, cold bricks as they chased each other to their hearts' content. They were such joyful, young, adorable... creatures. Their parents must be so fortunate, he concludes, to be raising such nice children. What a pleasant life it would be to take care of them, he thinks.

He imagines saying goodnight to the children, tucking them to sleep with a thin blanket on straw mattresses over hard, cold dirt floors on moonless nights. He imagines a child-stubborn with a dash of kindness.

He imagines.

One brown-haired boy runs by the Earl, and something about his hair catches his attention more than the others.

Ah.

Brown. His heart aches with wonder. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his memories vaguely whisper of another brown-haired boy with spiky hair, eyes wide with desperation. He may have turned the boy's father into an akuma. Probably. And then the memory was gone just as fast as it had come.

His thoughts drift back to the children. He wants a kid with brown hair, he thinks. He thinks a lot these days. Living for thousands of years tended to do that. He thinks about his goals for humanity, his plans to crush the abominable Heart, the family, their setbacks, and then, after all is done, he thinks about children. His eyes follow them, too. He wonders what it would be like to take care of a child. Then he backtracks and realizes he would never do that. Probably.

He gazes at them again. He's not responsible enough to pull that off. What would he even do with a child?

He doesn't know why he thinks about children so much. He doesn't know why watching them makes him feel as if he is remembering something (or someone) he can't quite grasp, and he doesn't know when this habit of his started. Sane men probably didn't spend every hour they weren't making more akumas in observing children. Then again, sane men probably didn't go around turning grieving people into hideous, killing machines either

Twinge. His senses tingle. He shakes off the feeling of disappointment. Somewhere in the northern part of the world, a mother was driven insane with mourning the sudden death of her only son: the perfect opportunity to make a new akuma.

He gives the playing children one last, fleeting glance—time to head back to work.

The dark haired man adjusts his top hat and weaves through the crowd of busy town people. He ducks into an alley, and is gone.

* * *

He's back to watching children again. Particularly two disheartened earth-haired twins who just lost both of their parents in a fire. They sat still on the bench at night, shoulders hunched-and the Earl can't help but wonder who the irresponsible imbecile was who let them wander by themselves right after losing their parents.

Not that he cares, really. He's just saying that if he had to take care of an orphaned brown haired kid who just lost someone (like a kid whose dog friend was beaten to death by an old man-Cosimo, his mind unhelpfully provided), he wouldn't be letting them out at night alone. He'd try to cheer them up. Maybe dress up like a clown. Children loved clowns, right?

"Little children, where are your parents?"

Both kids barely lift their heads to look at him. They remain silent, almost as if they didn't hear him. Still, the Earl isn't deterred.

"Quite the blaze this morning, huh?" The Earl is right behind them now. "Heard the fire took down a lovely couple, too."

He notices the kids' shoulders tense, fists clench, and know that he has their attention. There was only one fire in town today, and only one set of twins who lost their parents at the same time.

"Perhaps you'd like to see them again?"

* * *

Pesky flesh-bags, the lot of them. He doesn't know what his supposed God-sent enemies were thinking, allowing lowly humans to possess them, but he supposes it only makes his job easier. Humans were so much easier to kill than Innocence, after all. Just like this soon to be dead white haired boy with a giant metallic left arm.

"That's true, Jean." The boy walks closer to the nosy brat who kept disturbing the Earl's akumas in the town. Something about the boy's oddly colored hair makes the Earl strangely curious. White? Of all colors, why white? Did this one have a desire to be mistaken for an old man? Children had odd tastes nowadays. "That boy is not human. It is one of the Millennium Earl's weapons, merely disguised as your friend."

"It's an akuma." It's a little surprising that someone knew, and it unsettles the Earl a little.

"Who are you?" He asks, tilting his head.

"Your enemy." Not surprising. His arm is already a giant indicator that the boy wasn't a civilian like this goggled brat in front of him. For some reason, the sight of the activated innocence makes the Earl feel even more off. It looked odd to him, and dangerous. It felt like a weapon he had experience before, can feel its sharpness cutting him as he calls out- _I love you, A-!_

The Earl shakes off his line of thought. What? No innocence has ever cut through him. Right. He shouldn't allow himself to be distracted.

"An exorcist, then? Well, well, it's very nice to meet you." He greets the boy with odd taste in hair color in a convivial manner.

And yet. The exorcist activates his innocence, and tries to attack Leo.

How rude.

The menace stops him. The brat starts wailing about why Leo is an akuma, and that he can't be an akuma. The Earl can't help it: he feels pretty smug with the look of horror that crosses the kid's face when the boy realizes his best friend was no longer behind him. In his place was a level one akuma, guns trained to kill him. This was one kid the Earl didn't mind dying.

Kill him, he mentally urges Leo the akuma. The Earl can feel satisfaction pull in his guts-wouldn't one be after seeing their hard work gone to waste with one little menace who kept interfering with his akuma's in the city? He remains silent, prepared to relish the sight of yet another death by his akuma.

But that satisfaction suddenly turned to horror. The white-haired boy jumps in to protect the menace. The Earl gasps. Somewhere in him, a feeling stirs. Protective. _He sees tiny gray eyes peering at him. A boy named Red. "I hate clowns."_ It shakes him, leaving him jittery. He forces his eyes to study the exorcist who jumped in front of the little kid. Black stars began to dot his flesh, and the Earl can already feel his enemy's death in the air.

 _No. Red!_

He clutched his chest. What is going on with him today, the Earl wonders. He knows no boy named Red, remembers no one who said they hated clowns. He forces himself to focus on the task at hand.

"Ah, it was so brave of him to come jumping in front of the bullets for you." He feels his throat dry as he says this. He feels no guilt, no horror-or so he tells himself even as his being protests. He goes back to taunting the menace. How could this kid not realize he wasn't the bad guy here? He was only showing the world the true form of humans. Ugly, thwarted, and brimming with frustrations.

The kid doesn't look like he believes him.

"Leo used the Earl's power to bring his dead mother back to Earth, and turned her into an akuma." The exorcist's left eye attracts the Earl's attention. Red circles for irises and black for the whites of the eyes. The next few sentences chills the Earl's blood.

"I can see her. His mother is in terrible pain, for she turned into an akuma."

See her? No human should be able to see the inner workings of his adorable weapons!

"What are you talking about, you dying weakling?" He growls.

He has no recollection of any human who has the ability to do that. By this point the soon-to-be-dead kid's skin has already turned dark with the poisonous akuma bullets. A light shines from the exorcist's left hand.

"I host an anti-akuma weapon. I can purge my body of this venom." The boy crouches up, and soon, the venom from the akuma is being absorbed by the red star on his forehead. The Earl tries to shake off the confusing feeling of relief that courses through his body. _Pride fills him as he sees his son properly utilizing his parting gift._

Son? He has no son. What gift? He did not _gift_ anyone a star scar.

A star scar that looked so much like the pentacle on his akuma.

"That thing… What is it?"

"A curse. I turned someone precious to me into an akuma," The exorcist stands up. He seems eerily familiar now. The Earl's mind recollects a brown-haired boy who had turned his father into an akuma, who had killed his father's akuma skeleton with his own Innocence. "Thanks to that, I can see the souls which rest within Akuma."

"Ah! I remember! I've met you before, long ago! You are Allen Walker! You turned your father into an Akuma back then!" You turned _me_ into an akuma! Indignation. Stop. These confusing feelings are troubling him. _Nobody_ turned him into an akuma. It simply was not possible. He had never died. _Except he was lying on cobblestone, bleeding to death. His blurry vision captures a boy crying out his name. Keep walking. Keep walking! He wants to tell the boy._ Stop!

Two more people come in. A girl and one of the Order's trackers (finders). Things quickly go downhill from then. In the end, the troublesome brat doesn't die, and the Earl lost all his current level one akumas in the town due to the two meddlesome exorcists. Plus, a major headache and a personality split?

Tonight wasn't his lucky night.

* * *

He most definitely did not take to observing Allen Walker since that moonlit evening-why does that name make him feel like he should know the boy more than he does?-through the eyes of his akumas. He takes note of all the injuries the boy receives, the kid's shining personality.

He can't help but consider how odd it is that the boy is so polite. He _does not_ think the white-haired exorcist would be more familiar with a cruder language. He _does not_ consider having a clown-themed akuma going after the kid who dressed people up into clown outfits just so he could see what the exorcist would look like as a clown. What he _does_ do, is veto that idea.

The current clown akuma he had was a pretty strong level three. He wasn't worried that the kid may not survive such an attack. Not at all.

Back to the kid. That pesky eye of his. He can't help but admire the insight that father-turned-akuma's insight to curse his son with the sight to see akuma souls. That way, his son would know who to avoid so that he didn't get killed by other akumas.

He ought to congratulate the man.

But honestly, that scar fits him suits the child well. The kid's dad chose his location well. Through the left eye. He doesn't wonder why he knows Allen Walker's left eye was actually a lot weaker than his right eye before the kid had the cursed sight. The star scar only powered the kid more, if one thought about it. Walker certainly uses it well.

Not that he cares. He doesn't feel like a proud father watching his son grow, either.

He just wonders what it would be like if he had actually succeeded in turning the boy into one of his akumas. Granted, it would be the kid's father's soul leading the body. Still, he'd get to dress up the kid. A clown getup would fit him better than that bland black exorcist garb anyway.

And, his brain quips, brown hair would definitely suit that face better than white.

* * *

He hands Tikki Myk his card of targets, and can't help the sinking feeling in his gut. This was necessary. He hopes that when the boy is gone, the conflicting emotions churning within him would disappear.

He wants him gone, and yet he doesn't.

He wants Tikki to kill the exorcist. And, again, he doesn't.

Steeling himself, the Earl lets the card go. Soon, all the pesky exorcists would be purged from this world. They would be one step closer to destroying the heart. That was all that mattered.

…

His mind traitorously provides him an image of a younger Allen Walker, holding hands with him as they walked through town. He shakes his head. He did not know the kid before he came to offer the now-exorcist a chance to get his father back.

Goodbye, Allen Walker.

 _His chest feels like it wants to cave in._

* * *

Tyki comes back after having successfully eliminated Walker. The Earl congratulates him, ignoring the pangs of sorrow and horror and grief that bit at him from the recesses of his mind. He shouldn't care about some human who was destined to die.

That's what he tells himself anyway. Because when news comes to them a few days later that Allen Walker had survived Tyki's attack, the Earl most definitely does _not_ almost tear up with joy. Nor does his non-existing joy falter when he tells Tyki to follow up with his apparently alive target and send an akuma to go murder the boy in one of those Innocence hideouts.

Because he's the Earl and he's not supposed to care for anyone who carried God's crystals.

* * *

The next time he physically meets Allen Walker, he is attempting to kill one of the kid's teammates.

Then again, when is he not killing the white-haired exorcist's teammates?

Walker's grip on his arm stops him. The white-haired boy is so different from the last time that if he hadn't taken off his silver mask, the Earl would have wondered who this new white wispy figure was.

"Good evening, Earl."

"Good evening," The Earl smirks. He had been worried that his dematerializing akuma had dealt some actual harm to the 'spunky' young exorcist. But of course, the white-haired exorcist would be alright. "So we meet again, Allen Walker."

They battle furiously, leaping away from the Innocence girl who was trapped in a crystal. He whips out his sword, and pushes Walker back heavily.

"That form…" The Earl's thoughts jump back to one particular painting. "It looks like the white clown that chased after Augustine."

Those gray eyes, they were so familiar it _hurt_. Who are you really, Allen Walker?

"Don't you think?" He smiles widely at the annoyance he could see reflected in Walker's eyes. "You're such a strange child!"

Strange, indeed. Why couldn't he have just hidden away from the rest of the world, he wants to shout to the boy. With the eye that would have warned the boy which akuma-people to avoid, Allen would have been able to evade death from his akumas. _Allen would have been safe_.

Instead, the boy is an exorcist figuratively courting death.

Blast all of this.

He swings outward, and his sword catches Walker's shoulder. The exorcist grits his teeth, hopping back to safety; but the Earl is done with playing nice. He follows the retreating exorcist, catches one of the white tendrils on Allen Walker's cloak, and _pulls_. Walker comes flying at him.

Why does the boy bother him so much? He thinks back to his nights of agony, thinking the white-haired exorcist is dead. He remembers following the boy through all the eyes of his akuma. Appraising him, and even pulling back some of his akuma who posed a more lethal threat to the pathetically weak exorcist.

He wants all this to end, and the simplest way to stop all this was seal the fate of the poor, Innocence-trapped child before him.

The Earl poises his sword for the kill, and he takes in the surprised look in those gray eyes just before his sword stabs through the exorcist's stomach.

* * *

Or would have stabbed Walker's stomach.

 _Allen… Don't stop, keep moving forward._

He misses. What? What was that?

 _He sits on the cold stone floors, drawing symbols unto the snow. Every breath immediately turns to fog._

His head hurts. The Earl slides to his knees, gripping his head. It feels like a huge bell was set off inside his head.

"What is this?" Images he has never seen before, or thought he had never seen before, tears through his mind. His head is _splitting_ and help. HElp. HELP. He knows the rest of the family could feel his agony. "What have you done to me, Walker!"

"Wha-!" By now, the exorcist had gotten over his recent brush with death, and is watching him with a curious and cautious expression. "Me? I haven't done anything!"

" _This symbol means 'm', and this one 'd'. There's a difference. Do you see it now Allen?"_

" _Eh~So if you put a smash through the middle, it's an m, but a half slash is a d?"_

" _That's right. You're learning fast, my son."_

" _S-son! I'm not your son!" The boy's face burns despite the freezing temperature. His embarrassment is cute, he thinks. He can't wait to show him to the rest of the family._

"Earl!" Tyki appears before him. "What happened?"

Road is close by. "Allen…"

"Shounen."

"Road. Tyki Myk."

He can barely follow their exchange. Images and scenes invade his mind.

" _ **Make it stop!"**_

* * *

Road Camelot

"How's the Earl?"

Road looks up to see Tyki by the door. Lulubell is behind him, and following Lulubell is Wrath, Jasdevi, and Sheryl. Lero is already in the room with her. They all come in, and can't help but crowd around the Earl's fitful form on the bed. She sees him shiver violently, and she pulls the blanket even higher up his shoulders.

"Jeez, I leave you guys for one second, and this is what happens?" Road smiles weakly at Sheryl.

"Oi, oi. In our defense, we were keeping the other exorcists busy." Tyki raises his hand in surrender.

"Yeah, yeah!" Jasdevi affirms, and looks like they want to say more, but Lulubell stops them.

"Who did this to him?" They all feel the anger of the Noah fluctuating from the Noah of Lust, and edge back.

Allen, she remembers now. Road doesn't know what the young exorcist did to their Earl. She has never seen him like this before. If Allen had caused this much pain to her Earl, Road didn't know if she could stop herself from hunting the boy down.

Even if he was a little adorable, family always came first.

They're all silent, pondering the peculiarity of their situation. Who would have thought the Earl would ever fall in this position? That was what they were here for; the Noah apostles were here to protect the Earl; they failed in their most important job. And it feels like a stab in the gut. The Noah within them are screaming for retribution, and that can only end with the bloody and gruesome death of the youngest Walker.

"Allen Walker was the one we found with him." Road reluctantly divulges. She doesn't really think that Allen was the one who caused this much pain to the Earl. Or at least, she _hopes._ She'd really hate to go through with offing the exorcist. It's a conflict with interest.

"That exorcist! He'll pay for what he did!" Lulubell starts to stomp out of the room, when Road barely catches the Earl move.

"Don't!" The Earl's right hand had reached out to grip Lulubelle's, tightly keeping her in place.

"Millenium Earl!" Road exclaims. The Earl lets go of Lulu, and struggled to sit up. He grips his forehead, massaging his temples.

"Are you alright?" Sheryl asks, worry etched into her father's elegant face as he settles himself to the Earl's side, body taut with controlling the Noah's rage. The Earl only sighs.

"What happened, Lero?" Lero flies over to the now-rejuvenated Noah. "Tyki and Road were worried."

"I remembered." The Earl is unusually silent, and Road can see that this isn't easing anyone in the room. The only times the Earl had been like this, it was when something serious had happened.

"Remembered?"

"Road, Tyki, Lulubelle, Wrath, Sheryl, Lero, and Jasdevi…" The Earl starts. "What was I doing eight years ago?"

"Eh?" Whatever she was expecting, it was _not_ that. She wonders if the Earl can feel the surprised looks everyone was giving him. Seeing the Earl awake and talking calms her Noah down, and she knows that the same goes for the rest of the family.

"If I remember correctly… You were traveling by yourself for a couple of years." Sheryl's the first one to recover. The Earl lifts his head to look at the Noah of Desire.

"I wasn't alone." The Earl clutches his head. "I had a son."

. . .

 _WHAT?_

"I had a son..." Road is sure someone tripped, and someone sounded like they had choked.

"I had a son…" Millennium Earl repeats, eyes widening in realization as if he hadn't truly understood what he told the rest of the family.

"A-ano…. Maybe whatever the Earl-" Devit begins.

"Caught addled his brain?" Jasdero finishes, cocking his head to the side.

"That would totally explain it."

"Yeah, makes sense." They nod, agreeing that it was the only thing that fit their situation.

Road is the only one surveying the Earl closely enough to know that their unanimous conclusion that the Earl had gone round the bend annoyed the Earl. A vein ticks on his forehead.

"I'm not lying." The Earl gets up, and they jolt and scramble to stop him.

"Mille-You should still be resting!" She chases after him, but the Earl is surprisingly fast.

With the look of a man in a mission, the Earl comes out of his bedroom, and straight into the whiteness of the Ark. He darts into one of the alleys, and is gone.

By the time they catch up to him, the Earl has opened one of the many houses in the village, going inside with a dazed expression. She and the family trail after him in awe into the simple looking bedroom. It was clearly meant for a child. There were toys on one side, and a small bed in the other. A bag was placed neatly on the side of a plain wooden desk and a child-sized chair. It didn't look like the room had been used though. There was dust everywhere.

"I never knew we had a room like this in here." Road hears Sheryl say as she stares curiously in at the Earl who had stopped right in front of the desk staring at a picture frame.

"I was planning to show him to everyone," Road approached the frozen Earl, a sinking feeling in her gut, and gave a start. In the picture frame was Adam, the Earl's human persona, and a young boy… who looked eerily like one specific exorcist. "But… I died."

EH?!

* * *

Allen Walker

"You guys are heavy..." Having four people on top of him while he's trying to keep Lenalee un-crushed was no easy feat. He tilts his neck side to side, stretching his cramped muscles. "Gah!"

"What is this town?" BaKanda looks around with a glare.

"This place! It's inside the Ark!" Allen stares in wonder at the white bricked pavement, the neat layout of simple white houses. Why did they end up here?

They came with Lenalee, but how? Last time he had been here, it had been through a huge, dark gateway. The one that took them here was literally a circle on the floor.

"Why the heck are we here?" BaKanda levies him a glare. The atmosphere between them crackles to life.

"Don't know." How the heck should I know, Bakanda? Allen mentally grouches. Allen catches sight of the pink umbrella that the Earl swung around everywhere and that had been with Road the first time she attacked Lenalee, him, and Miranda. The umbrella is shaking, looking like it is struggling with something big.

"After long years, the boat completed its role and has come to a stop." The Earl's voice comes from the pink umbrella.

"Well done, Lero. Time to depart, my dear exorcists!" Allen watches in amazement as the pumpkin umbrella spits out a gigantic balloon Earl?! A building breaks apart from behind them, and the Earl laughs. "It's to depart with this Road to hell!"

But the laughter stops as soon as the Earl's balloon eyes land on him. The Earl balloon becomes suddenly serious, and something bad settles in his stomach. The Noah's next few words chills Allen down to the core.

"Except for you, my dear Allen Walker. I have different plans for you (heart)."

* * *

"There should be a house somewhere that connects to the outside! I came through that!"

"And how many houses have we busted?!" Still, Allen can't give up. There must be a way out. He's not willing to let everyone die here.

"Impossible, lero! This boat has stopped, lero! It's not connected to other dimensions, I tell ya, lero!" Allen ignores it, decimating one more building. Do not hit the pumpkin. Do _not_ hit the pumpkin. "Seriously, there is no-"

Allen gives in and hits the noisy pumpkin umbrella. He did not want to give up hope, despite what the Earl said. To Hell, the Earl had said. He looks back to Lenalee, the new person that had accompanied them with Anita and her crew to look for master Cross, Lavi, Krory, and even BaKanda. He doesn't want them to die here. He doesn't want to know what Johnny, Komui, and the rest would look like if they come back from this with cold, lifeless bodies.

He feels Crown Clown react to his tenseness. And tries to relax.

Besides, he breathes in, he was still pretty creeped out. He did not want to know what the Millennium Earl, the count with a vendetta against humanity, had in store for him.

" _Except for you, my dear Allen Walker. I have different plans for you (heart)."_

Allen shivered.

"Ow! You're gonna die here, lero!" This pumpkin…. Was asking to be hit one more time. More homes collapse, and they evade the falling debris.

"There is but one…." Allen feels someone behind him. That voice! "Exit."

"!"

The white-haired exorcist turns around to find _five_ Noah's behind him.

His friends all jump back, and he's about to join them in getting away from the dangerous gray-skinned superhumans when a gray arm snags his neck and keeps him rooted where he is.

"Wha-?"

"Where are you going, Shounen?" Tyki Mykk! The Noah who had almost succeeded in killing him-Allen's brain screams at him. Get away from here right now! He struggles, activating his arm, but the man's grip on him was solid. "You got me in so much trouble, you know."

In trouble? What about him? This man got him killed!

"Oi! Super thick glasses! Let Allen go!" Lavi shouts.

"Feh! Super thick glasses, he said!" snickered a blonde-haired Noah.

"Yeah, super thick glasses! Let him go!" a dark-haired Noah continued, propping up a gun.

"Aaand this is why the Earl wanted me to go with you," Another Noah Allen had never seen before sighs as if the man was already used to dealing with his kin's antics. "You guys… you don't intend to keep the Earl waiting forever, do you?"

At the remainder of that, Allen takes his struggling up a new notch.

"Let me go!"

"We can't Allen. Milleni~ needs you, you see!" Road smiles mysteriously, and it does nothing for Allen's growing horror.

Then his vision is filled with black.

* * *

The Earl

He can't help but take his time observing the boy now that he actually knows why his thoughts kept drawing him to the exorcist. He can't help but think he had grown up nicely, this little boy he used to take care of. He eyes the pentacle on the pale forehead, and once again wonders how things had come to this.

He still doesn't know what caused the rift in his memories. Why couldn't he remember Allen? He had left his son alone for so many years by himself-and attempted to kill him _multiple_ times. He had almost succeeded. He couldn't believe that he owed his son's survival to Innocence, of all things.

The Earl clenches his fist. Someone was gonna pay, of that he was sure.

He remembers the torture the boy went through, his small cries pleading his innocence to an unforgiving crowd. He remembers a small Allen up on a metal cage like he's an animal up for show in the circus. He felt his heart reach out to the young child who nobody sided with, who was very kind (in his own rude way), who loved his dog named Allen. He can't help but remember his satisfaction as their dirty blood spilled on the ground as he whisks the boy far, far away.

That was supposed to be the end of their journey.

And yet, it wasn't.

Red had turned out so much more. The little boy spewed language so uncouth it made ears bleed, and tried to hide his big, big heart under the veil of apathy-still, the Earl knew the boy cared. He had nowhere else to go to after he, in all his macabre glory, murdered an entire circus crew, so he had sought to place him in an orphanage. But he couldn't do it. Watching the disgust in the face of the matron, the evil eyes that people who found out about Red's deformed hand threw at the kid, and the light in the boy's eyes grow dimmer made Mana's guts churn with dark retribution.

He reasoned that as a clown, it was his job to make children happy. So he made it his job to bring out the smiles that the boy hid under his frowns. It made him see that every happy twinkle in the kid's eyes was worth much more than all the gold Sheryl had collected. It was just two hurt people, one suffering from the pain of betrayal, and one drowning in a harsh world full of rejection. He never meant for the boy to gradually become family.

But the small brown-haired child did, became such an inseparable part of the Earl that ensuring the child's happiness and survival had become one of his daily missions. It eventually came to the part where he knows that as soon as he figured out how to take the Innocence out of Allen, he would reveal his child.

He remembers planning to go back and show Allen to everyone. He remembers slowly making some of Allen's things 'disappear'. Precious photographs and mementos that he'd sneak into the Ark and to Allen's special room while the boy was asleep. He remembers buying toys he knew Allen wanted to try and arranging them in Allen's would-be room.

Because he was going to tell Allen the truth, and he knew his son would not mind.

He never got to tell Allen the truth, and now, it all led to this.

What was his little Allen gonna think now? His son couldn't possibly forgive him, his father who turned his friend into an akuma, his father who sent a Noah to kill him, his father who made his life hell.

If he wanted Allen back, he knew that what he was about to do was necessary. Otherwise, he knew that Allen would never accept his father figure being a wanted man by the Innocence he fought for. The same man who murdered people that his son cared about.

"Earl…." He turns to see Lulubell fixing her glasses. "The akuma is ready."

* * *

He watches the boy stir. Grey eyes blearily gaze around him, until it pops open almost comically. The Earl can't help but wonder what is going on behind those alarmed eyes. It travels through the plain white room with horror, suddenly realizing that he is in an unfamiliar place. Allen jolts awake, and tries to stand up only to find he is tied to the chair.

"Millenium Earl! Where have you taken me?"

…

"Millenium Earl?"

He can tell the boy is unnerved by his silence. Yet, he can't help it. How can he? It was one thing to know that this boy spoke politely, and another thing completely to relate the little rude boy he had adopted to this much more polite young man. It makes him curse what happened again. The sheer trauma it must have been to his poor son.

By now, his child is decidedly freaking out with his continued silence, but the Earl feels like something is lodged in his throat.

How could he ever apologize for leaving Allen on his own? For dying without permission and leaving an eight-year old kid out on the streets with no one to look after him?

Thankfully, Sheryl steps in to save him.

"Come now, surely that is no way to greet your father?"

"Father?" Allen gives the Noah of Desire a glower that conveys just how cuckoo he thinks the man is. "My father's dead."

* * *

Sheryl Camelot

Sheryl takes one look at the Earl and internally sighs. The boy's answer probably doesn't help the Earl who was already shaken up about having his son again. Because he is a father, he sorts of understand wanting to make a good impression on their child.

The fact that the Earl's adopted son has only known the first apostle as the surely evil man who's ruined countless human lives probably ruined any good impression the kid could have of his father's Noah persona. Tyki, who is behind the boy doesn't make any indication that he is there. Sheryl mentally applauds the man's previously unknown reservoir of patience-even if it looked like it was about to run out soon.

"I'm not dead, Allen." Finally. It seems like the Earl had eventually found whatever courage he had left.

Allen Walker goes on the defensive, eyes narrowing in controlled anger.

"You-!"

Whatever the kid was gonna say dies on his lips as the Earl sheds his outer shell, revealing the human Adam.

The boy freezes, sitting stock still, seemingly unable to tear his eyes away from the transformation happening right in front of him. Then he hear's the child's breath hitches, and Sheryl watches gray orbs widen in recognition. And _horror_.

Here we go, Sheryl prepares himself.

"M-Mana…?"

Mana what?

Tyki and him share confused looks. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't that. Shouldn't the kid be saying 'Adam?' or 'Father?' or something? Who was Mana?

"Allen." The Earl smiles gently, reaching out a hand to cradle the boy's cheeks. "My son."

"N-no! It can't be!" The boy shakes his head furiously from side to side. "What are you playing at, Noah?!"

"It really is me, Allen." The Earl kneels in front of the boy, and hugs the child in denial. It's a little sappy, in all honesty, but he's glad to have this out of the way.

Lulu motions the mind-based akuma in from the doorway. This would have been so much easier if the Noah of Wisdom had been alive, but since **that** had happened….

* * *

The End

Allen slowly wakes to stare dazedly at the finely decorated ceiling above him. Even in the dimly lit room, he can see hints of curled metal tracing the intersection between the high walls. It was all extraordinarily fancy, something he was not used to, especially when traveling with Mana.

Where was he? His head pulses, but he ignores it in favor of scrunching his face at the sudden bright light. Where was…? He lifts his head up to see a room filled with smiling, curious people, and freezes.

He feels a few muscles tense, the rest still groggy from sleep. The group he's with looks friendly enough, but he doesn't actually know these people. They all gaze at him expectantly, but he doesn't know what to say until he finds one familiar face in the crowd. Almost jumping off (his left arm stings with the action), a soft cry leaves his lips.

"Adam!" His tiny limbs protest, but it doesn't stop him from weakly leaping to hug his father. He snuggles into the man's broad chest, and simultaneously uses his father as shield to hide himself from the rest of the people in the room.

"Where are we? Who are all these people?" He loudly whispers into Adam's ears (was it normal to think it was weird to call Adam, Adam? Allen feels like a different name would fit his father better-something like Lana or Mana, or Kana).

His father's warm arms wrap around him, pull him tightly into a hug. "Allen, these are-"

"Your new family! I'm your niece, Road Camelot." The older girl gives him the cutest smile.

"I'm Sheryl Camelot, the father of this wonderful young lady! And Adam's brother." A man to the right who looks elegant as fu-no, he shouldn't use that word anymore. Didn't Adam (Mana) tell him not to use it anymore?

"Tyki Mykk, your uncle."

"Jasdero and Devit!"

"Lulubell."

He is silent the whole while that they introduce themselves, and there's a few seconds of awkwardness that only he seems to feel when their greetings end with a buff man. Adam softly nudges Allen to respond. Allen feels a whine build at the back of his throat. He wants to tell Adam (Mana) that he wants to just hide behind his father and his father should just let him.

"It's alright. They're really nice people. I'm sure you'll grow to love them in no time, my son."

Love them? He just met them! Was this Adam's family? What if they didn't like him? Like the others who were disgusted with his deformed left hand. He peeks down to look at it and sees nothing but unblemished pale skin. He's confused for a moment before he realizes that silly him-his left arm wasn't deformed!

He looks at Adam's encouraging smile, and gingerly lifts his head from his father's chest to greet them.

They seemed nice enough.

"N-nice to meet you. I-I'm Allen D. Campbell." He manages a short intro before he flushes with embarrassment at his stutter, and goes back to burrowing his head under Adam's neck. But, at least, Adam's proud smile means he didn't mess up too bad.

* * *

Adam presses a small kiss at the top of his son's head. Shrinking and giving Allen an arm (plus covering the hole in Allen's heart) using Dark Matter and reinforcing it with magic seals had been no easy feat. But this way, his son wouldn't have to remember living through years without Adam remembering him.

This time, Adam remembered Allen, clear as day. And he would keep him away from all Innocence. Away from all the fights, like Allen had previously been.

"I remember you," He presses one last kiss at the dozing child's head. "I remember you, my son."

* * *

Should I post this as a different story? Or keep this here? Or both? Please read the beginning notes!


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